Foer, Jonathan Safran. (b. 1977)
Autograph Letter about "Everything is Illuminated"
Autograph letter from the American novelist to his former professor, the writer Elizabeth Benedict, written while traveling in Europe during the early stages of writing his novel Everything is Illuminated. July 8, 1997. Writing from Prague, Foer describes his arrival in the Czech Republic and his trip to the Ukraine (where he was researching family members): "I wasn't able to find the family I was searching for, but stumbled upon much else. There is an arsenal of stories waiting to be told..." and reports on his writing: "I've been getting a lot of writing done. I'm about 140 pages into a novel. It incorporates bits of my Ukraine jaunt, but is not anything like an attempt to put down on paper what I saw and felt—which I may or may not try one day. It's more wild—at times funny (I think), at times somber, deeply informed by Salman Rushdie (who I have been reading recently.) I hope I can show it to you next year." 3 pp. on lined, hole-punched notepaper, with original envelope. In very fine condition. 5.75 x 8.25 inches (14.9 x 21 cm).Benedict was Jonathan Safran Foer's first creative writing professor at Princeton when he was a Freshman in 1995. In the summer of 1997, he wrote her the present letter from Prague, where he was starting to write - though perhaps he didn't know it - Everything is Illuminated. Published in 2002 as Foer's first novel, the book received critical acclaim for the manner in which it switches between two stories, both of which are autobiographical. One of them is the fictionalized history of the eradicated town of Trochenbrod (Trachimbrod), a real exclusively Jewish shtetl in Poland before the Holocaust where the author's mother was born; while the second narrative encompasses Foer's trip to Ukraine in search for the remnants and memories of Trachimbrod as well as the author's writing-in-progress. (15489)
Autograph Letter Literature