The Western Sephardic Diaspora and European Literature

This work focuses on the literature of the conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism) and the Spanish and Portuguese ‘New Jews’ who settled in Europe (Italy, France, Holland, and Germany) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It will examine how leading figures of the Western Sephardic Diaspora developed cultural and political relationships with their new host countries, and how they maintained ties with the Iberian Peninsula. Some characteristic features of judeoconverso literary production, including methods of imitation and the practice of creating two versions of the same text, each targeting a different public, will be illustrated through analysis of the works of Antonio Enríquez Gómez and Josef Penso de Vega.