Isaac Goldemberg (born 1945) is a Peruvian-American author, founder of the Latin American Writers Institute, Brújula/Compass, and "Hostos Review", and a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Hostos Community College.^[1] Goldemberg was born in Peru, and immigrated to New York City, where he currently lives, in 1964. He is a fellow member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language.^[2]

His novel The Fragmented Life of Don Jacobo Lerner, was chosen by the National Yiddish Book Center as, "one of the 100 greatest Jewish Books of the last 150 years."^[3] The book tells the story of the life of Jacobo Lerner, a Jewish merchant, who immigrates to Peru from Eastern Europe. Jacobo has an illegitimate son, Efraín, by a Christian woman who he later abandons and thus never knows his son. Jacobo ultimately fails to achieve his goal of creating a traditional Jewish family before he dies, having been rejected by the respectable Miriam Abramowitz. Thematically, the novel presents an examination of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism. The book is divided into chapters which consist of vignettes written in the voices of the characters and an omnipotent narrator, as well as "Crónicas", and excerpts from Alma Hebrea, a publication of the Jewish community in the novel, which features writings by the characters ^[4]

Selected bibliography

• Tiempo de silencio (1970)
• De Chepén a La Habana (1973)
• "The Fragmented Life of Don jacobo Lerner* (1976)
• La vida a plazos de don Jacobo Lerner (1978)
• Hombre de paso/Just Passing Through" (1981)
• "Tiempo al tiempo" (1984)
• "Play by Play" (1986)
• "La vida al contado" (1992)
• "El gran libro de América judía" (1998)
• "Peruvian blues (2001)
• El nombre de padre (2001)
• "Hotel AmériKKa" (2002)
• Los autorretratos y las máscaras/Self-Portraits and Masks (2002)
• Golpe de gracia (2003)
• "Il nome del padre" (2003)
• Los Cementerios Reales (2004)
• La vida son los ríos (2005)
• "La vie a credit de Don Jacobo Lerner" (2005)
• Tierra de nadie (2006)
• "Monos azules en Times Square" (2008)
• "Acuérdate del escorpión" (2010);
• "La vida breve" (2012)
• "Diálogos conmigo y mis otros" (2013)
• Chepén, madre de arena (2015
• "Remember the Scorpion" (2015)
• "Dialoghi con me e con e miei altri" (2015)
• "Tiempo al tiempo" (2016)
• "Dialogues with Myself and My Others" (2016)
• "Ricordati lo scorpione" (2016)
• "Philosophy and Other Fables" (2016)
• "Libro de reclamaciones" (2018)
• "Sueño del insomnio/Dream of Insomnia" (2021)
• "El gusano saltarín y otros poemas/The Leaping Worm and Other Poems" (2023)
• "Libro de las Raíces/Saphi Libro" (2023)