Brigid Pasulka wins Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
Brigid Pasulka, an English teacher at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, has won the 2010 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for "A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True."
In her review for the Tribune, Wendy Smith wrote: "Brigid Pasulka’s engaging debut intertwines the story of Polish peasants whose love is tragically derailed by the Nazis and the postwar Soviet takeover, with the chronicle of their granddaughter’s coming of age in post-communist Krakow. Pasulka brings to both narratives a warm understanding of her characters’ foibles as they struggle to find happiness in a land racked by tumultuous change.” The novel grew out of Pasukla's post-college experience of living in Krakow, the city of her ancestors.
Finalists were C. E. Morgan for "All the Living" and Abraham Verghese for "Cutting for Stone." The judges were fiction writers Julia Glass, Michael Lowenthal and Gail Tyukiyama.
The novel deserved much more buzz than it received, but perhaps this prize will push the novel into store windows and hands of appreciative readers.
Elizabeth Taylor, literary editor
etaylor@tribune.com
Find "A Long, Long Time Ago & Essentially True" and other titles in the Chicago Tribune Amazon store.
I really liked this book and the same for Cutting for Stone. Trib was only paper I saw review this and that's too bad. It should have gotten much more local attention.
Posted by: Juli | 03/11/2010 at 02:28 PM