Santa Fe author Susan Wider wins National Jewish Book Award for Young Adult Literature

AWARD GIVEN TO SANTA FE AUTHOR’S BOOK

“It’s My Whole Life: Charlotte Salomon, An Artist in Hiding During World War II” earlier this year received the National Jewish Book Award for Young Adult Literature. The author of the book is Susan Wider of Santa Fe.

The book contains reproductions of about 30 of Salomon’s paintings, as well as her family photographs and historical photographs. The award’s judges commented that from the ages of 24 to 26 the German-Jewish artist created 769 paintings while in hiding in southern France during the German occupation of the country. She and her husband were captured by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. Upon arrival in October 1943, Salomon and her unborn child died in the camp’s gas chambers. A few months before her capture, Salomon had entrusted the body of her paintings to a trusted friend to whom she is believed to have said, “Keep this safe. It’s my whole life.”

The judges said Wider’s book tells Salomon’s story in an accessible and engaging way. The text and the paintings in the book address a number of issues the artist faced, among them fascism, abuse and family trauma.

The awards are given annually by the National Jewish Council.

Santa Fe author Susan Wider wins National Jewish Book Award for Young Adult Literature

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Santa Fe’s Johnna Studebaker is the author of the recently released “Walking West on the Camino — on the Vézelay Route.” The book describes her journey, mostly on foot and mostly by herself, on one of four feeder routes in France that lead to the popular Camino pilgrimage route, culminating at Santiago de Compostela, the capital of the Galicia region in Spain. The cathedral in the Spanish town is believed to be the burial site of the apostle St. James. Studebaker and her twin sister, Marcia Pyner, together did the first 65 miles of the Vézelay Route to Nevers. They paused, then Studebaker returned, solo, to walk (and in part ride a train) for the remaining 165 miles from Nevers to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port in southern France.

This is Studebaker’s second “walking” book. The first, released in 2018 in a revised edition, was “Walking West on the Camino — Encore une Foie.” It chronicled her and her sister’s 1,000-mile trek, done over some years, from Le Puy-en-Velay in France all the way to Santiago de Compostela.

Studebaker is retired from the practice of law.

NEW BOOK OF SIMON ORTIZ POETRY

The University of Arizona Press has just published Simon J. Ortiz’s latest poetry collection, “Light as Light.” Ortiz, who is from the Pueblo of Acoma, initially gained fame during the emergence of the Native American literary renaissance in the 1960s. He has taught at a number of colleges, including the University of New Mexico and Arizona State University, from where he is a retired regents professor.