Greenberg Center Marks 40th Anniversary of Wallant Award

Release Date: 4/10/2003

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — The Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford is pleased to announce that Dara Horn has been named the 2002 recipient of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for her debut novel, In the Image (W.W. Norton, 2002). The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m., in Wilde Auditorium, Harry Jack Gray Center, University of Hartford, 200 Bloomfield Ave., West Hartford.

At the award ceremony, Horn will discuss In the Image, a story that is partly about the Jewish immigrant experience and partly about people seeking love, commitment, and fulfillment, at times within a religious and cultural context. It has received high critical praise from reviewers all over the United States. The Christian Science Monitor calls In the Image "A work of raw genius...a book to press into other people’s hands and pester them to finish."

Also offering their comments will be the panel of judges who selected the book for the Wallant Award—Sanford Pinsker, professor of English, Franklin and Marshall College; S. Lillian Kremer, professor of English, Kansas State University; and Daniel Walden, professor emeritus, American studies and English literature, Penn State University.

Horn joins a distinguished list of award recipients, including Cynthia Ozick, Curt Leviant, Chaim Potok, Allegra Goodman, and Myla Goldberg. Horn is a doctoral candidate in comparative literature, modern Hebrew and Yiddish, at Harvard University. Her award-winning nonfiction writing has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, American Heritage, Science, and Hadassah magazine.

Established 40 years ago by Dr. and Mrs. Irving Waltman of West Hartford, the Wallant Award is presented to an American writer, preferably unrecognized, whose published work of fiction is deemed to have significance for the American Jew. The award honors the memory of Edward Lewis Wallant, author of The Pawnbroker and other works of fiction, who died prematurely in 1962.

The Wallant Award is now one of the oldest and most prestigious Jewish literary awards in the United States. It demonstrates the forethought of the Waltmans in conceiving the honor. Mrs. Fran Waltman says, "We always felt that this was an award that was unique to our community. Now, after the 40 years, it seems that it has achieved fame throughout the literary world."







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