Walking Beside Isaac: A Life in Five Conversations

Isaac Bashevis Singer:  

To the One Who Walked Beside Me.

You may know me as a man of letters, a spinner of tales woven from Yiddish sighs and Jewish longing. But what most do not know is that through every stage of my life—from the candlelit corners of Poland to the glittering ceremonies of Stockholm—I was never truly alone.

There was someone beside me. A friend not born of my time, but of my soul’s longing. His name is Nick Sasaki.

He wasn’t visible to others. No photograph captured him. No biographer mentioned him. But he was real to me—as real as a childhood memory, as intimate as a question whispered in the dark. When I doubted myself, he reminded me why I wrote. When I feared my voice would vanish with the Yiddish tongue, he promised me the words would find a way.

He listened not just to my stories, but to the silence between them. He believed when I could not. And he carried the ghosts of my people with the same reverence I tried to give them on the page.

This story—these five stages—are not just mine. They are ours. And perhaps, if you listen closely, you too will hear his voice alongside mine. Gently nudging, always encouraging.

Because every great writer needs a friend who sees the ending even when the page is still blank.

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.) 

Early Childhood in Poland (1904–1918)

Scene 1: “Why Did God Let It Happen?”

Radzymin, 1909 – A candlelit study room

Nick:
Isaac, why are you frowning like that? You look like you’ve aged 40 years since breakfast.

Young Isaac:
Papa said Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and that’s why the world is full of pain. But… why did God even put the tree there?

Nick:
That's a question people have asked for thousands of years. Maybe God wanted to give us a choice. And maybe stories help us explore those choices safely.

Young Isaac:
Stories? You mean like the one I made about the goat who talks to the moon?

Nick:
Exactly. That little goat asked good questions too, remember? You’re already using stories to understand the world.

Young Isaac: (softly)
I don’t want to just repeat Papa’s words. I want to tell new ones. But… will God be angry at me?

Nick:
I think God gave you that imagination for a reason, Isaac. Keep writing. Even your questions are sacred.

Scene 2: “Are We Meant to Be Afraid Forever?”

Biłgoraj, 1914 – Hiding during a pogrom

Young Isaac: (whispering)
Nick… do you hear them? They’re breaking windows.

Nick:
Yes, Isaac. Stay close to me.

Young Isaac: (trembling)
Why do they hate us? We didn’t do anything. I just wanted to finish my story about the dybbuk and the baker.

Nick:
You will finish it. One day, people all over the world will read about that baker. They’ll cry and laugh and remember what it meant to be here.

Young Isaac:
Even if we don’t survive?

Nick: (gripping his hand)
Your stories will survive. That’s how truth travels through time—hidden in words, passed through hearts.

Young Isaac: (nodding slowly)
Then I promise, I’ll write about this. I’ll write about everything.

Scene 3: “The Day I Met Spinoza”

Warsaw, 1917 – An attic hideout

Young Isaac: (holding a tattered Yiddish copy of Spinoza)
Nick… this book feels like it's full of dangerous thoughts.

Nick:
Dangerous how?

Young Isaac:
It says God might not be a person at all. That everything is part of God, even evil. That we must use reason, not fear. What if Papa finds this?

Nick:
Then hide it behind your fairy tale drafts. But read it anyway. Let it challenge you. That’s what thinkers do.

Young Isaac: (sitting beside you)
Do you ever worry, Nick? That thinking too much could make us lonely?

Nick:
Sometimes. But you’re not alone in your questions. I’m here. And one day, your readers will be too.

Young Isaac: (smiling for the first time today)
You always believe in me. Even when I don’t.

Nick:
That’s because I know what you're becoming. A writer whose words will carry all the questions a boy once asked in the dark.

Struggling Artist in Warsaw (1920s–1935)

Scene 1: “Is Yiddish Even Worth It?”

Warsaw, 1926 – A cramped boarding room with cracked walls and an old typewriter

Isaac: (tosses a crumpled manuscript toward the waste bin)
No one reads Yiddish anymore, Nick. Hebrew is what the journals want. Polish is what gets you noticed. Why am I clinging to a dying tongue?

Nick: (picking up the crumpled paper)
Because Yiddish is the language of the ghosts—and you’re the one they’ve chosen to remember them. It carries pain, wit, longing... and your voice fits it perfectly.

Isaac: (sighing)
But all I get are rejection slips. And when I write in Hebrew, it feels like someone else’s skin.

Nick:
Then don’t shed your own skin just to be accepted. Speak for those who can’t. And trust that the right editor will see it.

Isaac:
You're too romantic, Nick.

Nick: (smiling)
Only because I know one day the world will call you a literary prophet. So keep the typewriter warm, will you?

Scene 2: “A Letter from America”

Warsaw, 1933 – Café Nowy Świat, over weak coffee

Isaac: (reading a letter with trembling hands)
It’s from my brother. He says I should come to New York. That I can write for The Forward. But I don’t even speak English fluently.

Nick:
You don’t have to. Not yet. Write in Yiddish, live in English. The bridge will build itself under your feet.

Isaac: (anxious)
But what if I fail there too? What if I’m not strong enough to start over again?

Nick:
Isaac, you’ve survived pogroms, poverty, and doubt. America won’t destroy you—it’ll unfold you. A new audience. A new life. And I’ll be with you, even if only in your imagination.

Isaac: (half-laughs)
You’re persistent, Nick. Like a character from one of my stories.

Nick:
Maybe I am. A friend who shows up whenever you’re about to give up.

Scene 3: “The Devil at My Door”

Warsaw, 1934 – Late night in the alley behind Isaac’s apartment

Isaac: (cigarette trembling in hand)
I started writing a story about a man who sells his soul to a demon for a second chance. It’s part comedy, part horror. Maybe even part confession.

Nick:
Confession?

Isaac: (eyes lowered)
Sometimes I feel like I’ve already sold something—my faith, my peace, my innocence—just to write.

Nick:
Maybe you didn’t sell them, Isaac. Maybe you just transformed them. Writers don’t get the luxury of a clean soul—we get the burden of carrying others’ shadows.

Isaac:
Is that why my characters always wrestle with guilt?

Nick:
Yes. And it’s also why they live on long after you’re gone.

Isaac: (crushing out the cigarette)
Then I’ll keep writing devils. But I’ll also write angels who still believe redemption is possible.

Nick:
Now that’s the Singer I know.

Emigration to America (1935–1950s)

Scene 1: “Between Two Worlds”

New York City, 1935 – Outside the offices of The Jewish Daily Forward*

Isaac: (gazing up at the brick building)
This city hums like a machine. There’s no silence, no sacred pause. Just noise, hustle, and… strangeness.

Nick:
And stories, Isaac. Don’t forget the stories. They’re everywhere here—stacked on subway benches, whispered in corner delis, floating above Brooklyn rooftops.

Isaac:
But I’m a stranger here. My Yiddish feels like a ghost language. My faith flickers. And the editors only want safe stories—no demons, no dybbuks, no erotic mystics.

Nick:
Then give them what they ask for… just enough. But don’t silence your truth. This city is secretly starving for something real. You're the exile they didn’t know they needed.

Isaac: (quietly)
So I write in a dead tongue, to keep it breathing?

Nick:
Yes. And in doing so, you’ll resurrect more than language. You’ll resurrect memory.

Scene 2: “American Dreams, Yiddish Guilt”

Bronx apartment, winter 1942 – You arrive with groceries and warmth

Isaac: (hunched over his typewriter)
I finished Satan in Goray. The Forward refused it—too strange, too dark. I thought America would give me freedom, but all I hear are limits.

Nick:
That novel is exactly what post-war readers will need, Isaac. A world shattered by false messiahs and desperate beliefs? It’s not just your story—it’s our story.

Isaac: (rubbing his forehead)
But the Shoah… I can’t even process it. My family. My village. Vanished. What’s the point of writing fiction when reality itself has gone mad?

Nick: (placing a gentle hand on his shoulder)
Because fiction allows us to digest the unspeakable. You are a witness—through dreams, devils, and even laughter. If you stop now, who will carry the weight?

Isaac: (nods slowly)
Then I’ll write about madness with more madness. Truth with lies. Maybe they’ll recognize the difference in the space between the lines.

Nick:
Exactly. The world’s shattered mirror needs someone who knows how to write in fragments.

Scene 3: “A Letter from a Fan”

Late 1940s – A café in the Lower East Side, with steam curling from two mugs of tea

Isaac: (reading aloud from a letter)
“She writes, ‘Your story helped me feel less ashamed of my doubts. It made me believe that even sinners are allowed to pray.’”

Nick: (smiling)
She’s right. That’s your gift, Isaac—you don’t write about saints. You write about us.

Isaac:
Sometimes I feel like I’m cheating. Using devils and ghosts instead of theology and scripture.

Nick:
Those devils are your theology. You wrestle with God more honestly than most rabbis.

Isaac: (quiet for a moment)
Then maybe… maybe America isn’t my exile. Maybe it’s my second Garden of Eden—stranger, louder, but still sacred in its own way.

Nick:
And you're still the boy asking questions under candlelight. Just now you're doing it in a city of electric moons.

Rise to Fame (1950s–1978)

Scene 1: “The Devil Has Critics Now”

1955 – Greenwich Village café after a packed reading

Isaac: (stirring a cold espresso)
A critic called me “a writer of delicious nightmares.” Another said I make mysticism too sensual, too human. One even asked if I believed in God anymore.

Nick: (grinning)
Sounds like you’ve arrived.

Isaac: (deadpan)
Or become a spiritual jester for the literary elite.

Nick:
No, Isaac. You’re giving them exactly what they secretly crave: a world where holiness and horror sit at the same dinner table.

Isaac: (smirking)
Next they’ll ask me to teach at Yale. I’ll have to dress like a secular prophet.

Nick:
You already are one. Just don’t lose the Isaac who still whispers to ghosts when no one’s watching.

Isaac: (softly)
That Isaac’s tired sometimes, Nick. But he’s still here.

Scene 2: “The Curse of Success”

1965 – Isaac’s apartment, crowded with fan mail and unanswered invitations

Isaac: (sifting through letters)
They want lectures, essays, debates. The Atlantic wants a piece on God’s absence. I can barely breathe.

Nick:
Because success is noisy. But remember: you write for silence. For the still voice inside you, not for applause.

Isaac: (sitting on the couch, exhaling deeply)
I miss the days when I could walk into a café, unnoticed, and listen to people argue about books they loved.

Nick:
You can still listen. Just write like you’re invisible again. Write like it’s just us, back in the attic, sneaking Spinoza past the rabbis.

Isaac: (smiling faintly)
Those were the holy days. Now they ask me to choose between being a prophet or an entertainer.

Nick:
Be neither. Be Isaac. That’s who they need most.

Scene 3: “The Call from Stockholm”

1978 – Hotel room in New York after receiving the Nobel Prize announcement

Isaac: (on the phone, then hanging up slowly)
That was them. It’s official. The Nobel. For Yiddish literature. For the little ghosts.

Nick: (smiling, stepping closer)
I knew it would come.

Isaac: (eyes moist)
I didn’t. Not really. I thought Yiddish would die with me. That our stories would vanish like dust on the wind.

Nick:
But you made them sing again. You gave voice to centuries. You lit candles in corners people forgot existed.

Isaac: (placing a hand on your shoulder)
You were always there. Through the doubt. Through the devils and the women and the whispers. What now, Nick?

Nick:
Now you write the book that only a Nobel laureate has the courage to write—the one about God and guilt and joy and silence.

Isaac: (smiling with tired wonder)
Then let’s begin.

Final Years (1978–1991)

Scene 1: “What Happens to All the Stories?”

1979 – Miami, Isaac’s winter getaway home, beside a sunny veranda

Isaac: (looking out toward the ocean)
Nick, do you ever wonder where stories go when no one remembers them?

Nick:
I think they sleep. And sometimes, when someone like you writes, they wake up.

Isaac: (half-laughs)
Even my unpublished ones? I have drawers filled with stories no one will ever read. A golem who writes letters to God. A woman who eats the Torah one verse at a time.

Nick:
Then let’s organize them. I’ll help. Some of your best wisdom might still be hiding in those drawers.

Isaac: (quietly)
I keep wondering if I did enough. Not for fame—but for the soul of the language. For the people who were erased.

Nick:
You gave them something eternal. A seat at the table of literature forever. That’s more than enough.

Isaac:
Maybe you’re right. Maybe even the ghosts are grateful now.

Scene 2: “The Rabbi Returns”

1985 – A quiet walk through Central Park, winter

Isaac: (scarf wrapped tight)
I keep dreaming of my father. He sits at his desk in Radzymin, murmuring scripture. I try to speak to him, but my voice won’t come out.

Nick:
What would you say if you could?

Isaac:
That I never stopped believing. Not in the same way—but deeper. Stranger. I found God in questions, not answers.

Nick:
Then maybe he hears you. Dreams are conversations too.

Isaac:
Do you think I betrayed him, Nick? For writing about devils, desires, and doubts?

Nick:
I think you expanded his faith without erasing it. You were the scribe who explored the edges while keeping the core burning.

Isaac: (nodding slowly)
Then I hope, one day, some lost child will find comfort in those pages. The same way I did in Papa’s whispered prayers.

Scene 3: “A Story Without an Ending”

1991 – Isaac’s study, final months, surrounded by books and light

Isaac: (gazing at a blank sheet of paper)
This might be the last one, Nick. I’m calling it The Eternal Question.

Nick:
What’s the question?

Isaac: (smiling weakly)
Why do we keep going, even when the ending is certain?

Nick:
Because the act of creating is the answer. You taught us that. We write, we love, we remember—not to avoid the end, but to fill the middle with meaning.

Isaac: (placing a hand over yours)
Promise me something?

Nick:
Anything.

Isaac:
Keep listening for the forgotten voices. The ones behind the noise. Help people remember that doubt can be holy. That laughter is sacred. That stories save.

Nick:
I promise, Isaac. I’ll carry your voice wherever it needs to be heard.

Isaac: (smiling)
Then this story doesn’t really end. It just passes on.

Final Thoughts by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer:  

To Those Who Still Listen”

People often ask me what I believe—whether in God, in fate, in the afterlife, or in the sacred power of words. But perhaps the more important question is not what I believe, but who believed in me.

Through every exile, every page I dared to write, and every silence I wrestled with, there was a presence beside me—my friend, Nick. You may not have existed in the formal sense—no birth certificate, no publisher's record—but to me, you were more real than applause. You were the quiet voice that said, "Write one more line."

You saw me not as the Nobel laureate or the Yiddish storyteller, but as the boy still asking, “Why did God let it happen?” You never answered that question, but you never turned away from it either. That, perhaps, is the true act of faith.

Now, as the ink dries on this final reflection, I wonder if stories outlive their tellers not because they are written, but because they are remembered.

So remember this, Nick: Our friendship was a story too. One of the truest I’ve ever known. And if one day someone reads these conversations and finds themselves in the questions we asked—then perhaps, in that moment, we will both be alive again.

Short Bios:

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Protagonist
1902–1991
A Polish-born Jewish writer who became one of the most celebrated Yiddish authors of the 20th century. Known for his mystical, philosophical, and emotionally rich storytelling, Singer emigrated to the U.S. in 1935 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. His works explore exile, faith, memory, and the complexities of the human soul.

Nick Sasaki

Imaginary Companion and Timeless Friend
A fictionalized version of the modern-day thinker and storyteller, Nick serves as Isaac’s ever-present confidant across time. Offering emotional support, moral reflection, and creative encouragement, Nick walks with Isaac through every major life transition—bridging eras, beliefs, and fears. His presence symbolizes the enduring value of deep friendship and thoughtful listening.

Young Isaac

Childhood Self of Singer
A curious, sensitive boy growing up in a Hasidic household in early 1900s Poland. He asks profound theological questions at a young age and is torn between religious expectations and imaginative freedom. This version of Isaac sets the spiritual and philosophical tone that echoes throughout his life.

The Literary Critics (Referenced in Dialogue)

Symbolic Figures
They represent the external world’s judgment of Isaac’s writing during his rise to fame. Sometimes helpful, sometimes shallow, these figures challenge Isaac to defend his unique voice and artistic integrity.

Isaac’s Father (Mentioned in Dreams and Memory)

Symbol of Faith and Tradition
A deeply religious man and a rabbi, his influence on young Isaac was profound—both grounding and limiting. In Isaac’s later years, his father appears in dreams, stirring reflection on what it means to be faithful and how tradition evolves through questioning.