A reveal­ing biog­ra­phy of Anne Frank, explor­ing both her life and the impact of her extra­or­di­nary diary.

In this inno­v­a­tive biog­ra­phy, Ruth Franklin explores the trans­for­ma­tion of Anne Frank (1929 – 1945) from ordi­nary teenag­er to icon, shed­ding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hid­ing, now trans­lat­ed into more than sev­en­ty lan­guages, is the most wide­ly read work of lit­er­a­ture to arise from the Holocaust.

Com­pre­hen­sive­ly researched but exper­i­men­tal in spir­it, this book 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.

Ruth Franklin will be in con­ver­sa­tion with author Jonathan Rosen. Book sales and sign­ing will fol­low the pro­gram. Get a dis­count on the price of your tick­et if you pre-order the book.

Ruth Franklin is the author of A Thou­sand Dark­ness­es: Lies and Truth in Holo­caust Fic­tion, a final­ist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture, and of Shirley Jack­son: A Rather Haunt­ed Life, win­ner of the Nation­al Book Crit­ics Cir­cle Award for Biog­ra­phy. She lives in Brook­lyn, NY.

Jonathan Rosen is the author, most recent­ly, of The Best Minds: A Sto­ry of Friend­ship, Mad­ness, and the Tragedy of Good Inten­tions, which was named a top ten book of the year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, The Atlantic, Slate and Peo­ple Mag­a­zine, and was cho­sen by Barack Oba­ma as one of his Favorite Books of 2023. The Best Minds was also a final­ist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Rosen is also the author of the nov­els Eve’s Apple and Joy Comes in the Morn­ing, and two addi­tion­al non-fic­tion books: The Tal­mud and the Inter­net: A Jour­ney Between Worlds and The Life of the Skies: Bird­ing at the End of Nature. His essays and arti­cles have appeared in The New York Times, The New York­er, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Jour­nal, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. He is a con­sult­ing edi­tor at The Free Press.

Tick­et Info:
In per­son: $10 gen­er­al; $8 seniors/​students; $6 CJH mem­bers; $37 gen­er­al with book; $35 seniors/​student with book; $33 CJH mem­ber with book; click here to reg­is­ter

Live on Zoom: Pay what you wish; click here to register

Thank you to Ances­try, the Cen­ter for Jew­ish History’s Fam­i­ly His­to­ry spon­sor for Inter­na­tion­al Holo­caust Remem­brance Day programming.

Pre­sent­ed with Jew­ish Lives and Jew­ish Book Council