Author Edward Lewis Wallant's Work Will Be Celebrated At Short Stories Saturday

Author Edward Lewis Wallant’s life and work will be celebrated on Saturday with a presentation by his daughter, Leslie Wallant, at Short Stories Community Book Hub in Madison from 4 to 6 p.m.

“The Pawnbroker,” Edward Lewis Wallant’s renowned 1961 novel, is newly republished by Fig Tree Books with a foreword by Dara Horn, author of four widely acclaimed novels and the recipient of honors including the National Jewish Book Award, the Reform Judaism Fiction Prize, the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and the Edward Lewis Wallant Award.

Novelist Dave Eggers wrote of Wallant, “In the short time [he] was writing—about three years wherein he considered himself and was considered a serious writer—he was counted as part of a brilliant group of postwar Jewish American writers , Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, and Philip Roth among them. That Wallant died so young, unable to travel on with these writers, is criminal, especially given how prolific he was. But the novels he finished in his short life are all miniature masterpieces.”

“The Pawnbroker,” is a gripping story about loss, family, and survival. Remarkable for its attempts to dramatize the aftereffects of the Holocaust, it is valuable as an exploration of the fraught relationships between Jews and other American minority groups. That the novel remains so powerful today makes it all the more tragic that its talented author died, at age 36, the year after its publication. The book sold over 500,000 copies soon after it was published.

The book relaunch event will be hosted by Leslie Wallant who is a student of folklore and a writer/illustrator of children’s books.

Short Stories Community Book Hub is an independent bookstore and cultural arts space located in downtown Madison.