One of America's most popular Jewish writers, Chaim Potok (b. 1929) is the author of such novels as The Chosen (1967), The Promise (1969), The Book of Lights (1981), and Davita's Harp (1985). Each of his novels explores the tension between tradition and modernity, and the clash between Jewish culture and contemporary Western civilization, which he calls 'core-to-core culture confrontation.'Although primarily known as a novelist, Potok is an ordained Conservative rabbi and a world-class Judaic scholar who has also published children's books, theological discourses, biographies, and histories.Conversations with Chaim Potok presents interviews ranging from 1976 to 1999. Potok discusses the broad range of his writing and the deep influence of non-Jewish novels-in particular, Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited and James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- on his work. Interviews bear witness to Potok's many other influences -- Orthodox Jewish doctrine, Freudian
