Ellen Lit­man is the author of Man­nequin Girl: A Nov­el and the sto­ry col­lec­tion The Last Chick­en in Amer­i­ca, a final­ist for the Los Ange­les Times First Fic­tion Award and for the Young Lions Fic­tion Award. She has been the recip­i­ent of the Rona Jaffe Foun­da­tion Writ­ers’ Award, and her work has appeared in Best New Amer­i­can Voic­es, Best of Tin House, Amer­i­can Odysseys: Writ­ing by New Amer­i­cans, Dossier, Tri­quar­ter­ly, Ploughshares, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. Born in Moscow, she teach­es writ­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut and lives in Mansfield.

Search­ing for My People

Quo­tas: On Being Jew­ish in Pre-Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Rus­sia and Sovi­et Russia