ASP Summer Reads
July 15, 2024
Looking for a new read this summer? Look no further! From poignant short story collections to tell-all memoirs to authoritative histories, ASP has you covered. Check out some of our… READ MORE
Tag: Memoir
“My Hebrew Writing and the MGB Informer”: Excerpt from Zvi Preigerzon’s “Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag,” with an introduction by Alex Lahav
September 9, 2022
We are pleased to present here an adapted excerpt from Zvi Preigerzon’s Memoirs of a Jewish Prisoner of the Gulag, translated from the Hebrew, accompanied by a personal introduction from editor and translator Alex Lahav. The book tells the story of Zvi Preigerzon’s arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment in the Gulag and describes many of the Jewish prisoners whom he met there.
“Neither piece alone is enough”: Excerpt from “Death and Love in the Holocaust” and a personal introduction from Steve Hochstadt
February 24, 2022
We are pleased to present here an excerpt of Death and Love in the Holocaust: The Story of Sonja and Kurt Messerschmidt, accompanied by a short personal introduction from author Steve Hochstadt. The book tells the story of Kurt and Sonja Messerschmidt, who met in Nazi Berlin, married in the Theresienstadt ghetto, and survived Auschwitz. They witnessed the death of Jews every day for two years, but never stopped building their own life together. The words of these survivors, which are contextualized with explanations of historical explanations from the author each chapter, create a direct relationship with the reader, as if they were telling the story in their living room.
Death and Love in the Holocaust is out March 1, 2022 and is available for preorder wherever books are sold. The excerpt published here is from the chapter “Slave Labor.”
GIVEAWAY: Win a signed copy of LIKE A DROP OF INK IN A DOWNPOUR
February 4, 2022
Academic Studies Press is giving away TWO signed copies of Yelena Lembersky’s new memoir, Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour. Keep reading to learn how to enter for your chance to win!
Book of the Week: “Schindler’s Listed: The Search for My Father’s Lost Gold”
August 10, 2020
This week we’re featuring Schindler’s Listed: The Search for My Father’s Lost Gold by Mark Biederman with Randi Biederman. The book is currently available for purchase at $10.00, $15.00, and $19.95. Choose the price you think is fair and fits your budget!
Book of the Week: “Brodsky Among Us” by Ellendea Proffer Teasley
June 22, 2020
This week we’re featuring Brodsky Among Us: A Memoir by Ellendea Proffer Teasley. The book is currently available for purchase at $12.00, $20.00, and $29.00. Choose the price you think is fair and fits your budget!
Brodsky Among Us is a searingly personal memoir of the great Russian poet by his American friend and publisher, containing much previously unknown material about how Brodsky left Russia and how he made his way in the new world, and how, during the cold war, Americans played a crucial role in his fate.
A Cache of Letters: An Excerpt from When the River Ice Flows, I Will Come Home by Elisa Brodinsky Miller
May 8, 2020
By the rules of the retirement center in Bloomfield, Connecticut where my father had lived, the family was allotted five working days after his death to clear out the belongings from his cottage. My brother and I had agreed: we wouldn’t save any furniture, just the china, the stemware, the samovar, and the contents of his study. It all was to go into a storage unit near his home in Wallingford, CT. Together, later, we three siblings would sort through it all. Each of us would take what we wanted and we’d toss the rest. We doubted there would be any scraps between us; we three are much too different. Exactly a year after our father’s death, I traveled from Seattle, my sister came from Charlotte, to stay with my brother and his wife.
Fall Reading List: New Fiction and Memoir
September 30, 2019
Fall is officially in full swing. The weather is getting cooler and it’s about time to stay inside with a good book! This fall, we’re very pleased to supplement our scholarly publishing program with a strong list of exciting general interest books. Check out our Fall Reading List below, featuring several new and forthcoming books: a rare translation of Uzbek literature into English, a collection of contemporary Russian short stories, a translation of an award-winning memoir, and more.
An Interview with Luba Jurgenson and Meredith Sopher, Author and Translator of Where There Is Danger
September 20, 2019
In Where There Is Danger (originally published Au lieu du péril, Verdier, 2014), Jurgenson meditates on what it means to live between two languages—in this case, her native Russian and adopted French. Earlier this month, we released a Fall 2019 Literature in Translation Sampler featuring an excerpt from Where There Is Danger (download it here). Today we bring you an interview with Luba Jurgenson and Meredith Sopher exploring the ins and outs of bilingualism, the process of translating the book, and more!
National Translation Month 2019: Featured Literature in Translation from Azerbaijan, France, Russia, and Uzbekistan
September 6, 2019
Happy National Translation Month! We’re celebrating all month on the blog—earlier this week, we published a guest post from translator Christopher Fort on the legacy of Uzbek writer Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon and his unfinished dilogy Night and Day.
Today, we’ve put together a sampler full of excerpts from four novels, a memoir, a book of essays, and a collection of short stories, translated from Russian, French, and Uzbek.