Granta’s republication of Joseph Roth’s novels has created a new generation of readers for this great novelist. Roth was also celebrated as a journalist, and The Wandering Jews is his portrait of the Jews of Eastern Europe: of their poverty, their towns and trades, their feast days and mystical rabbis. This was a community living under the shadow of extermination, and Roth was aware of the threat. Michael Hofmann, an award-winning poet, has again translated a neglected classic.