The Primordium book launch

Welcome to The Primordium book launch! Join Panui and Der Nister-LA for an exciting online event where we will unveil our latest masterpiece. Dive into a world of adventure, mystery, and magic as we celebrate the release of this epic masterpiece of Yiddish mystical modernism, Der Nister’s The Primordium (Der Kadmen, 1910) which takes the reader deep into the mind of God. Translated, Introduced and Annotated by Nathan Wolski With original Art by Tunni Kraus.

A kabbalistically-suffused, hyper-anthropomorphic myth about creation by a master of Yiddish modernism, Der Nister’s Primordium (Der Kadmen, 1910) takes the reader deep into the mind of God preceding creation, and narrates his precarious and tortured quest for self-consciousness and expression. Tracing the Primordium’s maturation across cosmic eons in the face of his own doubts and fear, and in the face of cosmic silence and nothingness, Der Nister’s Der Kadmen is a meditation on the dialectics of being and nothingness, and one of the boldest experiments in writing Jewish
myth in modernity. Critically annotated, adorned and unveiled by ten paintings, this bilingual edition will delight scholars of Kabbalah and Yiddish alike.

What experts are saying about The Primordium:

"A modernist Yiddish creation myth which feels equally Zoharic and Kafkaesque. A wild avant-gardetrip into the tortured mind of God. Wolski’s translation of Der Nister’s astonishing Yiddish proseand Kraus’s visual midrash are exquisite"--Melila Hellner-Eshed, author of A River Flows from Eden: On the Language ofMystical Experience in the Zohar, and Seekers of the Face: Secrets of the Idra Rabba

"A profound myth of Divine unfolding, of the dialectical interplay between Being and Nothingness.In his wondrous, sparkling translation, Nathan Wolski has made this gem of Yiddish literatureavailable to the wider world. Reading this short story takes you on a spiritual journey to the beyond".—Daniel Matt, author of Becoming Elijah and the multivolume,annotated translation, The Zohar: Pritzker Edition

Host or Publisher Aubrey Glazer, Panui