George Washington University’s Department of English and Jewish Literature Live proudly present a reading by Elizabeth Poliner on Thursday, February 23, 2017 at 7:00PM in The GW Marvin Center Amphitheater. The author will be reading from her novel As Close to Us as Breathing.

‘In “As Close to Us as Breathing,” her novel about a sprawling but close-knit Jewish family, Elizabeth Poliner sets herself a dual challenge: to tell a story in a first-person voice that omnisciently inhabits the minds of its many participants while also using a recursive narrating style that flows back and forth across a nearly hundred-year span of time.

Poliner is an effective chronicler of that fraught interspace where ancient Jewish custom butts up against the shiny modernity of American life. In the words of Saul Bellow, “The Jews were strange to the world for a great length of time, and now the world is being strange to them in return.” It’s clear that right outside the Jewish enclave of Bagel Beach, the Other begins, and that Other, particularly with the acrid taint of the Holocaust still lingering in the air, is a source both of temptation and of threat.’

(From the New York Times Book Review, March 25, 2016)

This event is FREE and OPEN to the public. First come, first serve seating.

Jewish Lit Live hosts rising and renowned Jewish American writers to speak with the GW and literary community. Guest speakers have included emerging leaders, National Humanities Award Recipients, international bestsellers, and UN-Award Winning Writers, e.g. Michael Chabon, E.L. Doctorow, Daniel Handler, Nicole Krauss, & Erica Jong.

Jewish Literature Live! 2017 Schedule