London in Fiction: The Jewish East End in the Radical 1930s

A discussion on Simon Blumenfeld's novel Jew Boy and the representation of the Jewish East End.

First published in 1935, Simon Blumenfeld's deliberately provocative debut novel Jew Boy marked a break in the depiction of the Jewish East End. Between the wars the Jewish East End was home to a unique cultural network of libraries, political and literary organisations, music societies, education classes, dance halls and billiard halls that connected to each other in ways that have seemed almost impossible since. Blumenfeld captures this exciting new world and its relationship with an older, more traditional Jewish community in Jew Boy, seen as the founding work of what became a unique body of fiction, autobiography and drama in the literature of the 20th century Jewish East End. Ken Worpole discusses Blumenfeld's novel and the representation of the Jewish East End with Rachel Lichtenstein.

Ken Worpole is the author of a number of books on architecture, landscape and social history. He is a Senior Professor at The Cities Institute, London Metropolitan University.

Rachel Lichtenstein is an artist, writer, oral historian and curator. Her numerous books include Rodinsky's Whitechapel and On Brick Lane which was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize.

The London in Fiction series is organised in collaboration with London Books, whose London Classics imprint aims to bring the city's marginalised fiction back into print www.london-books.co.uk

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