Rachel Kadish: Women, history & The Weight of Ink

Rachel Kadish is the acclaimed author of The
Weight of Ink, winner of the 2017 National Jewish Book Award, as
well as the novels From a Sealed Room and Tolstoy Lied: a Love
Story. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, The Paris
Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, the New England Review and
Salon.


In this episode, Kadish, a faculty member in the Lesley
University MFA in Creative Writing program, talks about her most
recent novel — the interwoven tale of two women of remarkable
intellect: Ester Velasquez, an emigrant from Amsterdam who is
permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi, just before the plague
hits the city; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of
Jewish history.


Ultimately, Kadish questions whose stories get told and what
stories are forgotten.


Lesley University faculty member Caroline Heller, author of
Reading Claudius, conducts the interview.


Read more on our podcast page.