Book Discussion & Author Visit: Horodno Burning

Vermont author, Michael Freed-Thall, will read from his novel Horodno Burning, share his research about the setting’s Jewish history, and answer questions about the novel-writing process. Horodno Burning was recently selected as a finalist in the Independent Publishers of New England Book Awards of 2022.

In the nineteenth-century Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement, Esther Leving, a brilliant young bibliophile, chafes at male dominance, religious dogma, and antisemitism. Bernard Garfinkle, a religious Jew and the son of a vodka distiller hides a shameful secret—in a culture that worships books, he can’t read. Despite their differences, they fall in love. Esther teaches Bernard to read, and he, in turn, builds her a bookshop. They start a family, but when ferocious pogroms target Russian Jews, they must confront violent oppression.