Isaac Bashevis Singer was born in Leoncin, Poland, on July 14, 1904. He was the third of four children, three of whom became writers. Hinde Esther, the oldest, is least known. Israel Joshua, Isaac's older brother, wrote The Brothers Askenazi and other novels after immigrating to the United States in 1933, where Isaac followed him two years later. Isaac had been writing essays and stories for Yiddish newspapers in Poland, but for several years after his arrival in New York, he wrote only some reviews for the Yiddish-language newspaper, the Jewish Daily Forward, and other journals. Meanwhile, his first novel, Satan in Goray, had been published in Poland, although he left the country before seeing a copy.

It was not until the early 1940s that he resumed writing fiction, still in Yiddish.

In 1940 he married Alma Haiman. They have no children, although Isaac has a son, Israel...