Alexander Godin, the penname of Joseph Katz (1909–70), was a Russian Jew who immigrated to the United States with his family in 1922. He worked as a bottler in a chemical plant in New York, while teaching himself English. He soon gained notice for his short stories and novel On the Threshold (1933), the story of a Ukrainian peasant girl. He is best known for his short story “My Dead Brother Comes to America,” which was published in 1934 and included as part of The Best Short Stories of the Century. Written at a time of large European immigration to the United States, the story highlights the arrival of immigrants to America through Ellis Island to reunite with their father, in the process disclosing the hardships the immigrants faced in the “Old World” and in coming to the New. Godin was later disabled by chronic schizophrenia and died in poverty in September 1970. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Long Island, New York.
Making American citizens through literature
Author: Alexander Godin
Alexander Godin, the penname of Joseph Katz (1909–70), was a Russian Jew who immigrated to the United States with his family in 1922. He worked as a bottler in a chemical plant in New York, while teaching himself English. He soon gained notice for his short stories and novel On the Threshold (1933), the story of a Ukrainian peasant girl. He is best known for his short story “My Dead Brother Comes to America,” which was published in 1934 and included as part of The Best Short Stories of the Century. Written at a time of large European immigration to the United States, the story highlights the arrival of immigrants to America through Ellis Island to reunite with their father, in the process disclosing the hardships the immigrants faced in the “Old World” and in coming to the New. Godin was later disabled by chronic schizophrenia and died in poverty in September 1970. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Long Island, New York.
My Dead Brother Comes to America
Alexander Godin
“My Dead Brother Comes to America” was published in 1934. Written at a time of large European immigration to the United States, the story highlights the arrival of immigrants to America through Ellis Island to reunite with their father, in the process disclosing the hardships the immigrants faced in the “Old World” and in coming to the New.