Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash
From New York Times bestselling author Judy Batalion, comes a powerful debut novel, The Last Woman of Warsaw, from Dutton Books on April 7, 2026.
People often think of pre-war Polish Jewry as a religious and poor community, relegated to shtetls; the city of Warsaw conjures black-and-white images of destruction. But, in 1938, Warsaw overflowed with theaters, vaudeville, cabaret, nightclubs with revolving dancefloors, and fashion shows — it was called “the Paris of the North.” Before Las Vegas, Warsaw was the capital of neon colors and sensationalism. One-third of the population— including Batalion’s grandparents — was Jewish, and shared in this golden age of poetry, film, and comedy. There were 180 Jewish newspapers in just the capital city of Poland!
While writing The Light of Days, the story of young Jewish women who fought the Nazis from the ghettos in Poland, Batalion became obsessed with 1930s Poland, and especially with Warsaw, an exhilarating locus of cultural florescence that’s been eclipsed by the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. The Last Woman of Warsaw is, in many ways, a fictional prequel to The Light of Days and tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two twenty-year-old Jewish women, each from a different walk of life. It is a riveting narrative of friendship, forbidden love, and ambition, that also illuminates this golden era of culture in Warsaw and the art world that was annihilated alongside its artists and audiences. This is a story that crackles with the tension of people who have no idea their lives are straddling the precipice of brutality and terror to come. And by living and dreaming alongside these characters, readers understand what a vibrant and sophisticated place Warsaw was and the Jewish community that flourished there.
Jewish Book Council’s cover reveal this week marks the book’s availability for preordering from retailers before its publication on April 7, 2026. For more information and purchase options, click here.
Judy Batalion is the author of several books of award-winning nonfiction, most recently The Light of Days. Judy’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vogue, the Forward, Salon, the Jerusalem Post, and many other publications.
Related Reading
