Meir Aaron Goldschmidt and the Poetics of Jewish Fiction presents a bold new reading of one of Denmark s greatest writers of the nineteenth century, situating him, first and foremost, as a Jewish artist. Offering an alternative to the nationalistic discourse so prevalent in the scholarship, Gurley examines Goldschmidt s relationship to the Hebrew Bible and later rabbinical traditions, such as the Talmud and the Midrash. At the same time, he shows that Goldschmidt s midrashic style in a secular context predates certain narrative movements within Modern-ism that are usually associated with the twentieth century and especially Czech writer Franz Kafka. Goldschmidt was remarkable in his era, both as a writer who explored his peripheral identity in the mainstream of European culture and as a writer of the first truly Jewish bildungsroman. In this groundbreaking study of Goldschmidt s narrative art, Gurley refashions his position in both the Danish and Jewish literary canons and introduces his extraordinary work to a wider, non-Scandinavian audience."