I'm not one of the sort of people who falls often for heart warming. I'm too bitter, too jaded... too educated to be able to gush openly about kindly regard for many things. This book, though, deserves that kind of praise.

As you could gather from the blurbs from magazines, this is a hundred year old book that seeks to illustrate the lives of typical, everyday (not to say uninteresting) Americans. The book is short; it's stories are realistic. Thus, it gives great insight into our collective 'ancestry': a voice to the long-dead.

I'm inclined to think that every time I mentally want to destroy America, in this book, again, could be found renewed hope and exploration. In this book one can find the stories of Lithuanians who set out to cross the ocean, of free black women finding for the first time life in a segregated south, of Greek pushcart workers who end up with $50,000 in the bank. More or less, these are the voices that give our community continuity.... and, well, I'm starting to ramble and make little sense....

Just read the book....

This book should be more widely available. I find it full of the kind of detail about peoples' lives (in this case, immigrants to the United States) that are cogent, relevant, and delivered with considerable charm and lack of artifice. Everyone to whom I have given a copy of this book has raved about it.

Werner Sollors' critical anthology is a timely contribution to the relatively new multicultural self-image of America. On the historical side, it reminds us of the fact that, until about 1920, "American Literature" was understood as "literature written in the U.S.A.",in a variety of languages other than English, and that these works were also included in the anthologies and histories of American Literature. Authored by international and American scholars, the book's essays trace the development towards "English only" over the past seven decades, provide enligthening - and often entertaining - examples of novels, stories, poems and plays written in German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish, Yiddish, and other languages, and present the reader with a fascinating mosaic of America's truly multicultural literary heritage. With regard to the contemporary situation in an age of rapidly growing globalization, Sollors' introduction points to the somewhat paradoxical fact that, in spite of the new multicultural understanding of American society, the number of Americans who speak any language other than English is in constant decline. Reminding us of the fact that language always transports cultural values, Sollors' proposal for the preservation of America's rich multicultural heritage is "English plus" (another language). This idea may not make him many friends among the contemporary "English only" movements in several regions of the U.S., but it certainly appears to be a viable way towards a serious practice of multiculturalism.

This book rescues literature by and about mixed-race (Mulattoes and mixed-whites) people from the myth that they are all exotic varieties of "black." The author also gives us the history of common myths about interracial mixture.

This book should be read with Lawrence Tenzer's "The Forgotten Cause of the Civil War: A New Look at the Slavery Issue" because both books emphasize the importance of the "white slave" in abolitionist literature.

This is an incredible selection of writers, many of whom are new to me and worthy of being included in the canon. My only reservation about this book (published in 2000) is the inclusion of Constantine Samuel Rafinesque's proven hoax the Walum Olum. Not only are we treated to 52 pages of a sparkling rendition of it, but the notes do not allow readers to review the problematic history of the Walum Olum manuscript. In short, the Walam Olum is presented as a bona fide "epic" of the Delaware. For those interested in understanding more about the Walam Olum and why Rafinesque created the hoax, see David M. Oestreicher's "Unraveling the Walam Olum" in the Oct. 1996 issue of Natural History. The infomation was available a full four years before the publication of this anthology. One wonders what other mistakes the authors allowed into the book. All in all, though, this is a worthwhile collection

"The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature," edited by Marc Shell and Werner Sollors, is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the literature and culture of the United States. This book brings together a wide range of texts, each of which was originally written in a language other than English: Italian, Chinese, Russian, Danish, Yiddish, Navajo, Greek, and more. For the most part, the selections are presented in their original language, with the English translation on the facing page of each two-page spread.

In his introduction, Sollors notes that the purpose of this anthology is "to make visible the most glaring blind spot in American letters." The editors, in my opinion, succeed in this goal. This is a richly diverse gathering: autobiography, myth, short stories, poetry, humor, history, sermons, and more are included. The texts span several centuries, from the colonial era to the 1990s. Each selection includes its own separate introduction. Along the way are many fascinating facts--did you know, for example, that more than 50 Welsh-language periodicals circulated in America during the 19th century?

Some of the selections that intrigued me the most were Omar Ibn Said's 1831 Arabic slave narrative (which also raises interesting questions about religious pluralism in the United States); the Walum Olum of the Lenape, a Native American creation myth accompanied by fascinating pictographs; and "The Tyrolean" (1897), Julian Czupka's humorous story of Polish immigrants.

"The Multilingual Anthology" is a book that truly opens windows onto little-appreciated aspects of United States culture. I also recommend Reinaldo Arenas' novel "The Doorman," written in Spanish by this Cuban exile to the United States.

Multilingual America's contributing authors undertake to recover our nation's multilingual heritage by surveying texts written in languages other than English. In some of only a few of the collection's essays, Orm Overland, an authority on the Norwegian-American experience, gives a new twist to the melting pot vs. multicultural debate; Peter Conolly-Smith turns a discerning eye on linguistic assimilation among German-speaking immigrants in turn-of-the-century New York city; Matthew Frye Jacobson explores the prismatic effect of the American immigration/emigration experience on 1890s Yiddish-American fiction; and renowned French scholar Michel Fabre illuminates the work of French-speaking Afro-Creoles in 19th century New Orleans. In drawing attention to the country's linguistically diverse literature, the collection explodes the modern-day myth of a monolingual literary genealogy rooted solely in Chaucer and Shakespeare. At the same time, Sollors and his colleagues build a compelling case for the proposition that non-Anglophone works of fiction, poetry, and drama can, and indeed must, be part of the American literary mainstream. For, as the collection makes clear, an appreciation of American multilingulism is central to an understanding of the nation's multicultural history. In promoting an "English plus other languages" world view, this book's contributor's also remind us of the enormous advantages of multilingualism in an increasingly globilized political economy. We must, editor Sollors rightly insists, teach our children more Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and European langauges so that the next generation is prepared for its "conversation with the world."

This was a very interesting account of an immigrant girl's life in America. The first half of the book is about her life in Russia and it is helpful in explaining what type of world the author came from and why America was such a new world to her. I found the factual accounts in this book fascinating but when Ms. Antin started spouting her theories about life and about herself (which she does quite a bit), she appeared to me to be tiresome and conceited. I would recommend this book because it does give an interesting perspective on the life of an immigrant, although it can get very bogged down in places.

It is hard to believe I never was required to read this wonderful book, and I am thankful to have discovered it as a result of reading a children's book based on it (by Rosemary Wells, also highly recommended) to my children. The circumstances of its writing are remarkable; the images luminous and the prose unbelievably beautiful for any author, especially for a recent immigrant. But it is the insight into her personality, culture and psyche which appeal to me the most. You will also like the personalities you meet through her. This book should be read by anyone who loves the English language, loves America, or just loves a window into the soul of another.

"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudiah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African, written by Himself" is the story of an African man, Olaudiah Equiano (slave name: Gustavus Vassa) who was (evidently) born in 1745 in what is now Nigeria. He was captured by African slave traders, taken to the Atlantic coast, and sold into the slave trade. He was taken to the Caribbean, then Virginia, and eventually Europe. He served a ship's captain and sailed the Mediterranean and on a voyage to explore the North Pole (Greenland). He obtained his freedom and became an author and early anti-slavery activist. The publication of this book made him the best-selling black African author ever (up to that time). This book became a prototype of the "up-from-slavery" autobiography (typified by Frederick Douglass) and is a classic among Atlantic slave narratives.

The book is autobiographical and arranged chronologically, the author detailing events of his African childhood and his years as a slave and eventual self-emancipation. One notable thing about the book is the extent to which it is a travelogue: Equiano clearly enjoys telling travel tales more than decrying the horrors of slavery. His depictions of being a "stranger in a strange land" (e.g., the first time he encounters a clock, a painted portrait, books) are memorable.

The Norton edition is filled with related texts pertaining to Equiano and his times: articles and excerts by other writers about Africa, slavery, abolition, Equiano's birthplace, his literary influences; a useful map; a diagram of a sailing ship, etc. A good choice among several editions of Equiano's book.