The Edward Lewis Wallant Award
About the Award
The Edward Lewis Wallant Award is presented annually to an American writer whose published creative work of fiction is considered to have significance for the American Jew.
The award was established shortly after the untimely death in December 1962 of Edward Lewis Wallant, gifted author of The Human Season and The Pawnbroker, by Dr. and Mrs. Irving Waltman of West Hartford. The Waltmans were prompted to create this memorial because of their admiration for Edward Wallantís literary ability.
A panel of three critics serves as judges, and they seek out a writer whose fiction bears a kinship to the work of Wallant, and preferably an author who is younger and unrecognized. Among those who have received the award in past years are: Leo Litwak, Chaim Potok, Cynthia Ozick, Curt Leviant, Thane Rosenbaum, Myla Goldberg, Jonathan Rosen, and Nicole Krauss.
2007 Recipient
The 2007 Edward Lewis Wallant Award recipient is Ehud Havazelet, for his novel, Bearing the Body. Havazelet is Associate Professor on the Creative Writing Faculty at the University of Oregon.
Visit Ehud's Website
A.B., Columbia University (English); M.F.A., University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Author of two books, Like Never Before (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux) and What Is It Then Between Us? (Scribners). Havazelet has been the recipient of a Rockerfeller Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and a Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Fellowship. He was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His stories have appeared in such journals as DoubleTake, New England Review, The Southern Review, ZYZZYVA, Iowa Review, Ontario Review, and Crazyhorse, and have been chosen for the Pushcart Prize. He is the winner of both the California Book Award and the Oregon Book Award for fiction.
Bearing the Body has been critically acclaimed in numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Haíaretz, and elsewhere.
Read the New York Times review
Submission Guidelines
New submissions are welcomed annually. The deadline for submissions is
November 1 of each calendar year. For more information, please contact
Avinoam Patt, Ph.D., Feltman Professor of Modern Jewish History and
Coordinator of the Wallant Award Committee at the University of Hartford at
MGCJS@hartford.edu.
Past Recipients
| YEAR |
AUTHOR |
TITLE |
2007 |
Ehud Havazelet |
Bearing the Body |
| 2006 |
No Award |
|
| 2005 |
Nicole Krauss |
The History of Love |
| 2004 |
Jonathan Rosen |
Joy Comes in the Morning |
| 2003 |
Dara Horn |
In the Image |
| 2002 |
No Award |
|
| 2001 |
Myla Goldberg |
Bee Season |
| 2000 |
Judy Budnitz |
If I Told You Once |
| 1999 |
Allegra Goodman |
Kaaterskill Falls |
| 1998 |
No Award |
|
| 1997 |
Harvey Grossinger |
The Quarry |
| 1996 |
Thane Rosenbaum |
Elijah Visible |
| 1995 |
Rebecca Goldstein |
Mazel |
| 1994 |
No Award |
|
| 1993 |
Gerald Shapiro |
From Hunger |
| 1992 |
Melvin Jules Bukiet |
Stories of an Imaginary Childhood |
| 1991 |
No Award |
|
| 1990 |
No Award |
|
| 1989 |
Jerome Badanes |
The Final Opus of Leon Solomon |
| 1988 |
Tova Reich |
Master of the Return |
| 1987 |
Steve Stern |
Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven |
| 1986 |
Daphne Merkin |
Enchantment |
| 1985 |
Jay Neuseboren |
Before My Life Begins |
| 1984 |
|
No Award |
| 1983 |
Francine Prose |
Hungry Hearts |
| 1982 |
No Award |
|
| 1981 |
Allen Hoffman |
Kaganís Superfecta |
| 1980 |
Johanna Kaplan |
O My America |
| 1979 |
No Award |
|
| 1978 |
No Award |
|
| 1977 |
Curt Leviant |
The Yemenite Girl |
| 1976 |
No Award |
|
| 1975 |
Anne Bernays |
Growing Up Rich |
| 1974 |
Susan Fromberg Schaeffer |
Anya |
| 1973 |
Arthur A. Cohen |
In the Days of Simon Stern |
| 1972 |
Robert Kotlowitz |
Somewhere Else |
| 1971 |
Cynthia Ozick |
The Pagan Rabbi |
| 1970 |
No Award |
|
| 1969 |
Leo Litwak |
Waiting for the News |
| 1968 |
No Award |
|
| 1967 |
Chaim Potok |
The Chosen |
| 1966 |
Gene Hurwitz |
Home Is Where You Start From |
| 1965 |
Hugh Nissenson |
A Pile of Stones |
| 1964 |
Seymour Epstein |
Leah |
| 1963 |
Norman Fruchter |
Coat Upon a Stick |
About the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies
The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies is devoted to teaching and
original research in Judaic Studies from the Biblical to the modern periods.
Faculty from around the world have created programs that are diverse and
stimulating to the student body.
Founded in 1985 by a major endowment, the Center offers you an opportunity
to choose from a rich array of exciting classes in six different areas:
History, Bible, Jewish Law and Literature, Hebrew and Yiddish.
As part of the Greenberg Center's Spring 2008 schedule, Bearing the Body
will also be taught as part of Feltman Professor Avinoam Patt's JS/ENG 324,
Modern European Jewish Literature. The class will meet on Mondays and
Wednesdays, 1:30-2:45pm.
