This event will meet at the White Hart Inn, 15 Under Mountain Road, Salisbury, CT.

Tickets are required for this White Hart Series event. To learn more and purchase an advance ticket, please use this link.

From the moment they met in 1940 in Ravensbrück concentration camp, Milena Jesenska and Margarete Buber-Neumann were inseparable. Czech Milena was Kafka’s first translator and epistolary lover, and a journalist opposed to fascism. A non-conformist, bi-sexual feminist, she was way ahead of her time. Milena and Margarete loved each other at the risk of their lives. But in the post-war survivors’ accounts, lesbians were stigmatized, and survivors kept silent. This book explores those silences, and finally celebrates two strong women who never gave up and continue to inspire. 

Gwen Strauss is the author of The Nine and a collection of poetry, Trail of Stones. Her poems, short stories and essays have appeared in numerous journals including The New Republic, London Sunday Times, New England Review, and Kenyon Review. She was born and spent her early years in Haiti. Strauss lives in Southern France, where she is the Executive Director of the Dora Maar Cultural Center. 

Laurie Fendrich is an artist, writer and professor emerita of fine arts at Hofstra University. She lived and worked in New York for more than four decades before moving in 2019 to Lakeville, CT. A recipient of an NEA grant, two Dora Maar Fellowships, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, she has had several solo exhibitions both nationally and in New York, and is represented by Louis Stern Fine Arts in Los Angeles. Her essays reflecting on the role of art and artists in society, as well as short stories about artists, can be found in such publications as The Chronicle Review of The Chronicle of Higher Education and the blog Two Coats of Paint.