Ruth Franklin — The Many Lives of Anne Frank – with Frank Foer: Reading at Politics and Prose
The Many Lives of Anne Frank: Reading at the Center for Jewish History
The Many Lives of Anne Frank: Reading at Yale
The Many Lives of Anne Frank: Reading at American Jewish University
Miriam Frankel NY Sun: Anne Frank, 80 Years After the Liberation of Auschwitz, Emerges in a New Light
Haaretz: “Child, Author, Celebrity, Pawn: Exploring the Many Lives of Anne Frank”
“Unlike other biographies, Franklin’s goes beyond just chronicling Anne’s life. It explores how her diary, image and legacy have been reinterpreted, appropriated, misused and celebrated over time, offering a reflection on her evolving and contradictory significance in history and culture.”
Forward: “Anne Frank Didn’t Live Here–She Never Had the Chance”
“In recent decades in particular, Anne has ‘become more of an icon than a real person,’ Franklin said, which ‘leads people to extrapolate from her words whatever they want.'”
JMore: “Baltimore-Born Author Ruth Franklin Examines Anne Frank’s Life and Legacy”
“With ‘The Many Lives of Anne Frank,’ Franklin takes a fresh and innovative look at the discussions and debates surrounding the diarist’s life and work, including the controversial adaptations of her journal.”
“Franklin ‘situates the Franks’ travails within the larger context of the sufferings of Dutch Jews, three-quarters of whom perished in the Holocaust, and of the Nazi concentration camp regime. What, she wonders, might Anne have written of Auschwitz had she survived? … Franklin urges us to remember the girl before the icon.” –Forward
“Franklin writes with a rare combination of lightness and equanimity, with little sanctimony or finger-wagging [and] provides context that gives [Anne’s] story a new, edifying fullness…. It is unusual for a book to have a companion as faithful and elegant as the one Frank’s diary finds here.”—Los Angeles Times
“Ms. Franklin… has done a wonderful thing here. While giving an analysis of the obliterating phenomenon of ‘Anne,’ she continually points back to the real-life girl in a way that feels fresh and persuasive….Throbbing underneath Ms. Franklin’s vivid narrative, like a heart beating sometimes silently, sometimes audibly, is Anne’s Jewishness. . . .Readers who are familiar with Anne’s story—and who among us is not?— still have much to learn from “The Many Lives of Anne Frank.””—Megan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal
“Trenchant … an essential look at the diarist’s legacy.” —Publishers Weekly (★ Starred Review)
“Richly rewarding and meticulously researched … This assiduously researched yet accessible text is an excellent companion to the work of Anne Frank that illuminates the young girl and her undeniable impact on the world’s understanding of this tragic time in history.”—Bookpage (★ Starred Review)