Itzik Manger (1902–1969) was the greatest Jewish poet to write in Yiddish. Born in Kolomyia (Galicia), he spent his childhood in Chernivtsi, then lived in Iasi, Bucharest, Warsaw, Paris, London and New York. He died in Israel, where he moved shortly before his death. Munger, the last romantic poet of old Europe, subtitled his only novel, “The Amazing Life of Shmuel Aba Abervo,” “The Book of Paradise,” seeing in it the first part of a future trilogy. The novel was written in 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II. The book was published in Warsaw a week before German bombs fell on the city. “Expulsion from Paradise” was no longer the beginning of a novel, but a fait accompli of history. The other two parts were not written: the subtitle became the title. “The Book of Paradise” is a one-of-a-kind biblical comic novel: it combines the traditions of the apocrypha and philosophical satire of the 18th century. in the spirit of Gulliver's Travels and Polish pre-war cabaret.