Hugo Award Best Novel Winner
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Michael Chabon
Summary
Michael Chabon's alternate history imagines that a temporary Jewish settlement was established in Sitka, Alaska, after the collapse of Israel in 1948, and now faces reversion to American control. A homicide detective named Meyer Landsman investigates the murder of a chess prodigy in his run down hotel, and the case unravels into a noir mystery touching messianic prophecy and political conspiracy. Chabon fuses hardboiled detective fiction with Yiddish culture and speculative history.
”
Historical Context & Significance
The novel won both the Hugo and Nebula awards from a literary author better known outside genre fiction, and Chabon had previously won the Pulitzer Prize for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.