Jewish Life in Harbin, China: A Conversation with Jean Hoffmann Lewanda by Susan Blumberg-Kason Interviews [email protected] Tue, 01/07/2025 - 07:08 Shalama and Paul, Shanghai, 1950. Photo courtesy of Jean Hoffmann LewandaI met the author Jean Hoffmann Lewanda for lunch this past November in New Jersey, not too far from her home in suburban Philadelphia. Jean is the author of a new book, Shalama: My 96 Seasons in China (Earnshaw, 2024), the story of her mother’s childhood in Harbin, China, and young adult years in Shanghai. Jean’s first book, Witness to History: From Vienna to Shanghai: A Memoir of Escape, Survival and Resilience, is an edited edition of her father’s memoir tracing his escape from Nazi-controlled Vienna to the safe shores of Shanghai in the late 1930s. Jean and I originally met online thanks to mutual friends who are historians and the authority on everything Old Shanghai. When we met in person in November, we spoke for hours about publishing Jewish Chinese stories. We expanded this conversation over email. Susan Blumberg-Kason: Thank you, Jean, for continuing our lovely conversation back in November. I don’t remember coming across other authors who have personal connections to both the old Shanghai and Harbin Jewish communities, each of which numbered in the thousands. Your mother was the daughter of Russian Jewish refugees, and your father was an Austrian Jewish refugee. Was it unusual for people in these... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2025-01-07 13:08:24 UTC ]
Don’t expect the usual bromides about hard work and resilience in “One Life.” The soccer star’s memoir gets into her political awakening as much as it does her sports career. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-11-06 10:00:28 UTC ]
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Monoray, part of the Octopus Publishing Group, has acquired Where Did I Go Right?: How The Left Lost Me by comedian and writer Geoff Norcott. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 03:36:21 UTC ]
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Jonathan Cape has snapped up an “exquisite” memoir about the challenges facing gay men today from acclaimed poet and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlistee Seán Hewitt. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-03 07:03:12 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK’s new literary imprint Manilla Press has acquired a "powerful memoir" from debut author Bexy Cameron exploring her childhood in the notorious cult Children of God. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-02 00:29:45 UTC ]
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FEW WRITERS MANAGE to capture the essence of the California that exists beyond the images typically offered up by film and television — palm trees, beaches, gridlock, Hollywood, Kardashians; images the rest of the country seems so willing to accept about us “out here.” Kendra Atleework’s new... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-11-01 18:00:10 UTC ]
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Journalist Maria Hinojosa talks about her memoir "Once I Was You," and how a childhood trauma triggered her interest in immigration reporting. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-31 16:00:33 UTC ]
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Author Shirley Jackson often responded to readers’ letters; this one, written in 1962 after republication of her historical fiction for juveniles, The Witchcraft of Salem Village, seems uncannily prescient for our times. –Laurence Jackson Hyman, editor of the forthcoming The Collected Letters of... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-30 08:49:48 UTC ]
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Harper buys a memoir from Alexander Vindman, a WaPo columnist sells his memoir to S&S, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-10-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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CHRISTA PARRAVANI’S SEMINAL Guernica essay published last year, “Life and Death in West Virginia,” was my introduction to this author and inspired me to seek out more of her work. I was thrilled when she agreed to an interview. The personal is political, and in Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of... Continue reading at Los Angeles Review of Books
[ Los Angeles Review of Books | 2020-10-29 19:00:52 UTC ]
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Barack Obama’s memoir is landing. So is a biography of Adrienne Rich and buzzy fiction from Jo Nesbo, Nicole Krauss and Susie Yang. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-10-29 09:00:34 UTC ]
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Headline has acquired Drama Queen, a "compelling and funny" memoir about autism from comedy writer Sara Gibbs. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-29 03:20:34 UTC ]
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Faber is to publish a memoir from Evan Dando, frontman of alternative rock band the Lemonheads, in 2022. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-27 02:20:55 UTC ]
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Indie September Publishing has revealed two lead titles for spring: Melissa Rice's memoir Sobering: Lessons Learnt the Hard Way on Drinking, Thinking and Quitting, and Ronald J Deibert's non-fiction work, Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-27 01:43:01 UTC ]
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In an excerpt from his upcoming memoir published by the New Yorker, former President Barack Obama recalls the long battle for healthcare reform. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-10-26 19:52:09 UTC ]
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From André Breton to Alison Bechdel, memoir writers have turned the genre upside down. Now a photographer recreates her troubled suburban childhood in a book, casting a movie star — Laura Dern — as her mother. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-10-26 17:41:25 UTC ]
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“My hope was that by embracing openness and vulnerability, my readers would understand and empathize with the situation I had found myself in.” Allison Wood talks to Luna Adler about what a memoir can do. | Lit Hub Memoir “There is enough evidence in the public record to support a complaint that... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-26 10:30:04 UTC ]
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Bookable features established authors and emerging talent in conversation with host and author Amanda Stern, perhaps best known for creating the Happy Ending Music & Reading Series at New York’s famous Joe’s Pub and Symphony Space. With an immersive sound experience designed around each... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-23 08:48:34 UTC ]
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Guardian Weekend magazine and gal-dem are launching a memoir writing competition for UK-resident black women and black non-binary people aged 16-21 on the theme of ‘conversations’Calling all young black women and black non-binary writers aged 16-21. The Guardian is once again collaborating on a... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-10-22 11:23:42 UTC ]
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Lee Brackstone, publisher at White Rabbit, has acquired world all-language rights for Medical Grade Music directly from authors Steve Davis and Kavus Torabi. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-10-22 10:33:59 UTC ]
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Thank you, universe: We’re getting a queer Canadian grunge-era comedy series about Tegan and Sara Quin directed by Clea DuVall, and there’s literally nothing I can do to make that sentence better. The show will be based on High School, the sisters’ memoir of their adolescence in Calgary,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-10-21 18:12:12 UTC ]
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