Win­ner of the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award for Fic­tion: A cap­ti­vat­ing por­trait of a coura­geous anti-author­i­tar­i­an thinker liv­ing in exile, inspired by the life sto­ry of Han­nah Arendt.

Eri­ka Hertz is a Berlin-born Jew­ish intel­lec­tu­al who, with her art his­to­ri­an hus­band Martens, fled Nazi Ger­many for New York. It was Marten­s’s impres­sive rep­u­ta­tion that won them their sanc­tu­ary, but it’s Eri­ka who’s sup­port­ed them with her jour­nal­ism. In the years since, she’s cement­ed her own rep­u­ta­tion as a lead­ing cul­ture his­to­ri­an and the fêt­ed author of the inter­na­tion­al­ly-acclaimed tomes The Tra­vail of Free­dom and On Cru­el­ty.

Inspired by the life sto­ry of Han­nah Arendt – whose land­mark Ori­gins of Total­i­tar­i­an­ism (1951) Arthur Cohen pub­lished in its first paper­back edi­tion–An Admirable Woman won the 1983 Nation­al Jew­ish Book Award for Fic­tion. ​“A fas­ci­nat­ing piece of schol­ar­ship in its own right” (Pub­lish­ers Week­ly), it’s a trib­ute to Arendt and her fel­low Euro­pean thinkers dis­placed by Fas­cism, and a cel­e­bra­tion of the extra­or­di­nary impact they had on Amer­i­can cul­tur­al life.

This new edi­tion, fea­tur­ing a fore­word by Pulitzer Prize-win­ner Joshua Cohen, offers read­ers an all-too-time­ly por­trait of moral courage in the face of author­i­tar­i­an­ism, vir­u­lent big­otry, and state-spon­sored violence.