What WWII novels can teach us about the present: Author Talk with Scholar Sharon Hart-Green

Interested in history? Join us for an author talk with author and scholar Sharon Hart-Green. She will be discussion her novel and what WWII novels can teach us about the present. 

About the Author

Sharon Hart-Green's debut novel COME BACK FOR ME is a gripping story of trauma, loss, and the redemptive power of love set in the aftermath of World War II. It was chosen as the inaugural fiction offering of The New Jewish Press (a new imprint of the University of Toronto Press).

Sharon received her PhD in Judaic Studies from Brandeis University and has taught Hebrew and Yiddish literature at the University of Toronto. Her first book NOT A SIMPLE STORY (Lexington Books) was a study of the work of Hebrew novelist S. Y. Agnon. Her second book, BRIDGING THE DIVIDE (Syracuse University Press), is a compilation of her translations of the Hebrew poems of Hava Pinhas-Cohen.

In addition, Sharon's short stories, poems, translations, and reviews have appeared in a number of publications, including Midstream, The Jewish Review of Books, and JewishFiction.net.

She is currently at work on a second novel, about the mystical inclinations of a young man in search of love.

-From the publisher

About the Book

Loss, trauma, memory, and, above all, the ties of family and being Jewish are the elements that weave together this panoramic story. Come Back for Me travels through time and place only to bring us, ultimately, to the connections between generations. Artur Mandelkorn is a young Hungarian Holocaust survivor whose desperate quest to find his sister takes him to post-war Israel. Intersecting Artur's tale is that of Suzy Kohn, a Toronto teenager whose seemingly tranquil life is shattered when her uncle's sudden death tears her family apart. Their stories eventually come together in Israel following the Six-Day War, where love and understanding become the threads that bind the two narratives together. Like Sarah's Key, Come Back for Me deals evocatively with the scars left by tragedy and the possibilities for healing.

-From the publisher