Center for the literary arts in New York State
THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE AND “AFTERLIFE” OF ANNE FRANK IN FICTION
Ruth Franklin
4:30 p.m. Tuesday, February 4, 2025
Conversation / Q&A
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West
1400 Washington Avenue Albany NY 12222 - See map.
Ruth Franklin, acclaimed biographer, is the author of The Many Lives of Anne Frank (Jan. 2025). The book explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929-1945) from ordinary teenager to cultural icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary—translated into more than 70 languages— is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust. Franklin received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (2016), “a feminist reappraisal of a tortured genius of American gothic” (The Guardian).
Cosponsored by UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program (WCI) and the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York.
from the publisher:
“Trenchant. . . . An essential look at the diarist’s legacy.” — Publishers Weekly
Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, The Many Lives of Anne Frank chronicles and interprets Anne’s life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary — its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today’s world.
Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne’s ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity.
With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne’s life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne’s evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today’s hyperpolarized world.
