The promised land

An extraordinary popular success when it was first published in 1912, The Promised Land is a classic account of the Jewish American immigrant experience. Mary Antin emigrated with her family from the Eastern European town of Polotzk to Boston in 1894, when she was twelve years old. Preternaturally inquisitive, Antin was a provocative observer of the identity-altering contrasts between Old World and New. Her narrative — of universal appeal and rich in its depictions of both worlds — captures a large-scale sociocultural landscape and paints a profound self-portrait of an iconoclast seeking to reconcile her heritage with her newfound identity as an American citizen.