Irving Howe (1920–1993) was an American literary and social critic. A prominent voice among the New York Intellectuals, he wrote essays and criticism for Partisan Review, the Nation, Commentary and Politics. From its inception in 1954 until his death 1993, Howe edited the political magazine Dissent. In 1976 he won a National Book Award for his history of East European Jews in America, World of our Fathers.
With a contribution by Irving Howe and Lou Reed
Now with an exciting new preface by rock musician Lou Reed (Delmore Schwartz’s student at Syracuse), In Dreams Begin Responsibilities collects eight of Schwartz’s finest delineations of New York’s intellectuals in the 1930’s and 1940’s. As no other writer can, Schwartz captures the speech, the generational conflicts, the mocking self-analysis of educated, ambitious, Depression-stymied young people at odds with their immigrant parents. This is the unique American dilemma Irving Howe described as “that interesting point where intellectual children of immigrant Jews are finding their way into the larger world while casting uneasy, rueful glances over their backs.” Afterwords by James Atlas and Irving Howe place the stories in their historical and cultural setting.
