Rising Star: Peter Manseau, author

Acts of literary ventriloquism don't come very much bolder than Peter Manseau's. What kind of author might you expect to steep himself in the folklore-studded fiction of Russian Jewish life, both in the pogrom-prone Pale and then, after migration, in the poor but story-strewn streets of old New York?

The answer would, most probably, not involve the child of a former priest – and a former nun. Manseau revisited this singular heritage in his memoir, 'Vows'.

Now, for his fictional debut, the 34-year-old writer from Washington dives into the yarn-spinning Yiddish culture of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Sholem Aleichem with all the delirious abandon of a tipsy fiddler falling off a snow-covered roof.

'Songs for the Butcher's Daughter' (Simon & Schuster) takes the form of "memoirs" by typesetter and poet Itsik Malpesh, as translated by a Catholic admirer. Manseau will be speaking about his creation at Jewish Book Week on Saturday evening, 28 February