Literary translator Jeanne Bonner will read from her translation, This Darkness Will Never End, a short story collection written in Italian by Hungarian-born writer, Edith Bruck, who survived the Holocaust and has been publishing works of literature inspired by this brutal experience for more than a half-century.

The short story collection, This Darkness Will Never End by Edith Bruck, portrays in colorful detail the lives of poor Hungarian Jews before, during and after World War II, with the Holocaust alternately looming ahead as a fate that can’t be avoided or as the horror that can’t be outrun. The collection, published in English in April by Paul Dry Books of Philadelphia, includes a story that is considered by film scholars to have inspired Robert Benigni's Oscar-winning movie "Life Is Beautiful." Bruck, who was born in Hungary in 1931, settled in Italy after the war and has been writing in Italian for more than a half-century. She is the author of two dozen novels, short story collections, books of poetry and works of nonfiction, many of which touch on her survival of the 20th century’s worst atrocity. Through her work, Bruck supplies an answer to a critical question: What can women writers tell us about surviving the Holocaust era? At age 93, Bruck continues to write books. Three of Bruck’s other works have been translated into English, including Lost Bread, which was published by Paul Dry Books in 2023.

Jeanne Bonner is a journalist, essayist and literary translator. She was a 2022 NEA Literature Fellow in Translation. She won the 2018 PEN Grant for the English Translation of Italian literature for her translation of Mariateresa Di Lascia’s Passaggio in Ombra. In 2021, she was awarded a short-term fellowship at the New York Public Library where she studied the works of Edith Bruck, and other Italian women writers who survived the Holocaust. Her translations have been published by the Kenyon Review, The Common, PEN America and Asymptote Journal. She studied Italian literature at Wesleyan University and has an MFA in Writing from Bennington College as well as an MA in Italian Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Connecticut. Jeanne is a former newspaper reporter who worked for the Morning Call in Allentown for five years.

Edith Bruck is the author of two dozen novels, short story collections, books of poetry and works of nonfiction. Born in Hungary in 1931, she has been publishing works of literature in Italian since 1959, five years after permanently settling in Italy. Her novel, Lettera alla madre (English translation title: “Letter to My Mother”) won the Rapallo award in 1989. She also won the Viareggio prize for her novel, Quante stelle c’è nel cielo, which was adapted into the movie, “Anita B.” Her 1974 short story collection, Due Stanze Vuote, was a candidate for Italy’s most prestigious literary prize, the Strega. She was also a finalist for the 2021 Strega Award for her memoir Lost Bread, which was published in English in 2023 by Paul Dry Books. She has also translated Hungarian works into Italian, in particular poetry collections. Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, Dutch and German. She has long been a committed visitor to Italian schools to teach children about the horrors of the Holocaust. Bruck continues to publisher her work, and one of most recent works is a nonfiction book about her nascent friendship with Pope Francis, who visited Bruck at her home to honor her work as a witness and to ask forgiveness for the atrocities visited upon her, her family and the Jewish people.