Is Yiddish Literature from Argentina Argentine Literature? Kehos Kliger, World Poet and Translator of Martín Fierro

Abstract Kehos Kliger (born in Ludmir, in the Volhynian region of the Russian Empire, 1904; immigrated to Buenos Aires, 1936; died there, 1985) was among the most multifaceted and prolific Yiddish poets. His rhymed and blank verse, which appeared in eleven volumes and innumerable issues of the Argentine Yiddish daily Di Prese, included paeans to his native Volhynia, love poems (a genre uncommon in Yiddish), laments on the Holocaust, depictions of Buenos Aires thoroughfares and social types, evocations of landscapes and encounters experienced during a sojourn in Israel, and denunciations of racism throughout the Americas. A major achievement was his Yiddish translation of Martín Fierro-faithful to the original semantically, tonally, rhythmically, metrically. This article not only analyzes works by Kliger but also ponders whether Yiddish literature from Argentina belongs in the Argentine canon. Comparison is made especially with Polish writer in exile Witold Gombrowicz, whose Ferdydurke is often viewed as Argentine.