LEVIANT, CURT

LEVIANT, CURT (1932– ), U.S. novelist, translator, and editor. He was the assistant departmental editor of Modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature for the Encyclopaedia Judaica. He edited Masterpieces of Hebrew Literature (1964) as well as edited and translated King Artus: A Hebrew Arthurian Romance of 1279 (1969). In addition, he edited and translated Shalom Aleichem's Old Country Tales (1966); Some Laughter, Some Tears: Tales from the Old World and New (1968); From the Fair: The Autobiography of Sholom Aleichem (1985); The Song of Songs (1996); Happy New Year\! and Other Stories (2000); My First Love Affair and Other Stories (2002). Leviant's fiction includes The Yemenite Girl (1977); Passion in the Desert (1980); The Man Who Thought He Was Messiah (1990; this work won the National Jewish Book Award); Partita in Venice (1999); Diary of an Adulterous Woman: Including an ABC Directory That Offers Alphabetical Tidbits and Surprises (2001); and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Original Music of the Hebrew Alphabet, and, Weekend in Mustara: Two Novellas (2002). His fiction is nuanced, surprising, and often arabesque, dealing with the demands of the present and the claims of the past. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gale Literary Databases. (Lewis Fried (2nd ed.)