THE SHAWL <i> by Cynthia Ozick (Alfred A. Knopf: $12.95; 56 pp.)</i>

“ ‘The Shawl’ is brilliant, moving and chilling. . . . To build any language out of this inability to articulate seems impossible; yet, Ozick does it such a way that we, as readers, share the characters’ powerlessness to give words to their innermost experiences and, therefore, are forced to relive them.”