Isaac Bashevis Singer believed literature was a force for good.

"I am not ashamed to admit that I belong to those who fantasize that literature is capable of bringing new horizons and new perspectives — philosophical, religious, aesthetical and even social," he said when he accepted a Nobel Prize in 1978.

Although Singer (1904-91) certainly had high aspirations for what he wrote, he always kept both feet — and his typewriter — planted firmly on a solid foundation.

"The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word — not just a preacher of social or political ideals," he said during that same Nobel address. "There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants."

Singer is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and the father of modern Jewish literature. He wrote a stack of well-received short stories ("Gimpel the Fool"), novels ("Enemies: A Love Story") and memoirs ("Lost in America"). But choosing to become a writer was unlikely and difficult for him.

He was born in Poland to a family that had produced rabbis for seven generations. His upbringing was austere, and the family's assumption was that he'd follow in his father's footsteps. Singer was determined to forge his own career path.

He was curious about everything, and as a youth walked a fine line between his parents' orthodoxies and secular ways. In her recently published biography, "Isaac B. Singer: A Life," French literary critic Florence Noiville quoted Singer:

"I existed on several levels. I was a (Yeshiva student), yet I probed the eternal questions. . . . I studied the cabala (Jewish mysticism). . . . Simultaneously I read Dostoevsky."

He read everything he could lay his hands on. Often, he said, a friend would give him a book one day, and he'd finish it the next. "Omnivorously, I read stories, novels, plays, essays, original works in Yiddish and translations," he wrote in one of his memoirs, "In My Father's Court."

Singer constantly made critical assessments of his reading material. "As I read, I decided which was good, which mediocre and where truth and falsity lay," he wrote.

In addition to literature, he found inspiration for future work in his home, where his father presided over a rabbinical court.

"There under his eyes people came to plead their case or pour out their hearts," Noiville wrote. "They shouted, cursed, inveighed against each other. They went from laughter to tears; they kissed and made up. What a kaleidoscopic overview of life."

Singer soaked it up, more fuel for his vivid imagination. He wrote about what he knew: the lives of Jews in the ghettos of Poland, then about life in New York City, "since I have developed roots here too," he told Newsweek magazine. "I write mostly about Yiddish-speaking immigrants. I know them better than those born here. I try to write about things I know best."

When he came to the U.S. he knew how to say "Take a chair," but that was about it. He insisted on learning the language of his adopted country. He took a series of English classes, and every day would list on index cards new words, as if to be "author of a dictionary," Noiville wrote.

Even after he mastered English, he continued to write in his native tongue. While the number of Yiddish speakers and readers declined drastically after the Holocaust, Singer felt it was important to immortalize the history of the language.

The work he wanted to fashion, Noiville wrote, would serve as "testimony to a murdered people, a vanished culture and a dying language."

Singer used history's great writers as examples. They were "rooted in their people," he said, and at its best, great literature is "completely connected with one's origins."

Although he wrote diligently daily, Singer was never satisfied with the product. Much of his work was originally serialized in the Jewish Daily Forward before it was translated. Later printings were significantly different because when he supervised the translation he would edit his work to improve it.

French critic Henri Lewi wrote that Singer believed "the wastebasket (was) the writer's most essential tool." He insisted on being involved in the translation of all his work, and pared his text to the bone, "keeping only the essential elements of the setting, and the details essential to the story line," Lewi wrote.

Singer's output was prodigious: more than a dozen novels, seven collections of short stories, four memoirs and six children's books. "He never wasted a minute," said longtime assistant Dvorah Telushkin.

He kept a strict routine. He'd take a long walk with Telushkin daily, usually stopping at his favorite restaurant for boiled potatoes. Then he'd shift focus to his work. "When we got back . . . he would plunge back into his stories immediately," Telushkin said. "His concentration was such that there was something like a halo around his desk."

Singer was modest. Even after he won the Nobel Prize in literature, he was surprised that people were interested in him as much as they were in his writing.

Arriving in Stockholm, Sweden, to accept the prize, he was accosted by dozens of journalists who asked him all kinds of questions: Why do you still write in Yiddish? Are you a vegetarian for religious or health reasons? He jokingly responded: "It is the health of the chickens with which I am concerned, not my own."

Finally, an exasperated Singer asked the journalists: "Why do you ask so many questions about my life? When I am hungry, do I want to read the biography of the baker?"

He always had time for fans. In the Grand Hotel in Stockholm, he spied a cleaning woman with one of his books. She asked for his autograph.

"Of course I'll sign your book," he said, "but first tell me about yourself." That started a 20-minute conversation.

"That was typical Singer," Noiville wrote. "He always wanted to know everything, even the most intimate details. He knew how to ask questions without putting people ill at ease . . . because his interest was sincere. He was truly curious."

BY CURT SCHLEIER