Meet the Author: Lia Levi

Co-presented by the National Organization of Italian American Women, in collaboration with: La Scuola D’Italia, Italian Cultural Institute of New York, and the Westchester Italian Cultural Center. On the occasion of the publication of Lia Levi’s novel The Jewish Husband (Europa Editions, 2009). Reception at 6:30 pm, program begins at 7:00 pm.

Read more: A Conversation with Lia Levi by Alessandro Cassin.

Lia Levi was born in Pisa on November 9, 1931, to a Jewish family of Piedmontese origins. After the promulgation of the Fascist racial laws in 1938, her family left northern Italy and found refuge in Rome. Levi remained in Rome, where she completed her studies in philosophy and became a successful journalist. For more than thirty years she has directed the Jewish monthly Shalom.

Levi is best known as the author of several works of fiction largely dedicated to Jewish themes. Her first novel, Una bambina e basta (Just a Child), was awarded the Elsa Morante Prize in 1994.

Lia Levi’s works convey to readers a strong sense of confidence in the act of writing and in the possibility of transmitting historical memory to future generations. Faithful to the Jewish commandment of preserving the memory of the past—to the command to remember the exodus from Egypt every day of one’s life—Lia Levi wrote books in which historical events of our recent past are told for adults and children, as in the case of her Tutti i giorni di tua vita (All the Days of Your Life), 1997. Her previous novel, L’amore mio non può (My Love May Not), was staged by Manuela Kustermann. Her latest book, The Jewish Husband, will be published in the US in October by the prestigious Europa publishing house, the first US publisher dedicated to fiction in translation. (From: Lia Levi’s biography by Giorgio Parussa, Jewish Women Archives).

On November 2 Lia Levi will appear in Washington DC in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute

On November 3 Lia Levi will appear at Westchester Italian Cultural Center

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