(Rosner, Elizabeth) Elizabeth Rosner is a bestselling novelist, poet, and essayist Her previous books include three novels, Electric City, named one of the best books of 2014 by National Public Radio; Blue Nude; Speed of Light; and Gravity, a collection of poetry. Rosner’s essays have appeared in the NY Times magazine, Elle, Hadassah magazine, the Huffington Post, and numerous anthologies. She frequently writes book reviews for the San Francisco Chronicle. Survivor Café: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory (Counterpoint) is her most recent book. As firsthand survivors of many of the twentieth century’s most monumental events―the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, the Killing Fields―begin to pass away, Survivor Café addresses urgent questions: How do we carry those stories forward? How do we collectively ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten? Elizabeth Rosner explores the echoes of legacies among descendants of African American slaves, descendants of Cambodian survivors of the Killing Fields, descendants of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the effects of 9/11 on the general population. Examining current brain research, Rosner depicts the efforts to understand the intergenerational inheritance of trauma, as well as the intricacies of remembrance in the aftermath of atrocity. Survivor Café becomes a lens for numerous constructs of memory―from museums and commemorative sites to national reconciliation projects to small-group cross-cultural encounters.
