Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė, Vilna Ghetto Rescuer: an evening with Author Julija Šukys

3 Nov 2012 - 19:30 / 3 Nov 2012 - 21:00

The First Narayever Congregation
187 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto
Toronto

Saturday, November 3, 2012, 7:30pm
Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė, Vilna Ghetto Rescuer: an evening with Author Julija Šukys
First Narayever Congregation, in partnership with the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto.

In Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė, Julija Šukys follows the letters and journals—the “life-writing”— of Ona Šimaitė (1894–1970). A treasurer of words, Šimaitė carefully collected, preserved, and archived the written record of her life, including thousands of letters, scores of diaries, articles, and press clippings. Journeying through these words, Šukys negotiates with the ghost of Šimaitė, beckoning back to life this quiet and worldly heroine—one of Yad Vashem’s honoured Righteous Among the Nations and yet so little known. The result is at once a mediated self-portrait and a measured perspective on a remarkable life. On-stage interview with author Julija Šukys and Professor Kalman Weiser. Book signing to follow program.

Julija Šukys (PhD, University of Toronto) is a Montreal writer. In addition to Epistolophilia, she is the author of Silence is Death: The Life and Work of Tahar Djaout (2007).
Kalman Weiser (PhD, Columbia) is the Silber Family Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at York University. He is the co-editor of Czernowitz at 100: the First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective, and his recent book, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in Poland, is a 2012 Canadian Jewish Book Award winner.
Co-presented by the First Narayever Congregation & Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto.

VENUE:
The First Narayever Congregation
187 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto
Contact: 416–927–0546