Dawid to read at Neveh Shalom

By JEWISH REVIEW

article created on: 2010-04-04T00:00:00

A writer who formerly lived and worked in Portland is coming back to town this month and will read from her work at Congregation Neveh Shalom.

Annie Dawid is the author of three books. Some of her short writings also have appeared in various collections.

Today she lives and works in a cabin 9,100 feet above sea level in the Wet Mountain Valley of the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains in south-central Colorado.

In Portland, she taught for 15 years at Lewis and Clark College where she was the director of creative writing.

While in Portland, Dawid will read from “And Darkness Was Under His Feet, Stories of a Family.”

Writing in Jewish Book World—a publication of the Jewish Book Council, which awards the National Jewish Book Awards each year—Cynthia Ozick called this work, a “sprawling, warm-hearted story (that) spans six continents and 100 years, from the 1900 Sabbath table of Reizl and Lazar Solomon and their young sons in Radautz, Bukovina, to a glorious millennial reunion in Paris.”

One reviewer writing at Amazon.com said of this book, “I love that I could imagine conversations taking place between these individuals in 1900, 1940, 1960, 2000. Ms. Dawid did a beautiful job bringing these stories to life.”

Another wrote, “Ms. Dawid’s work tugs at the heart of every immigrant family and explores in beautiful detail the generations left behind. It is a historical travelogue that sleekly moves from era to place until the reader becomes enthralled with every character.”

Dawid’s other books include “York Ferry,” a 1993 novel, and “Lily in the Desert,” a 2001 collection of short stories.

Dawid will read at Neveh Shalom in the Stampfer Chapel at 7:30 p.m. on April 22. The event is presented by the Institute for Judaic Studies.