Edith Konecky (August 1, 1922 – March 28, 2019) was a Jewish American feminist novelist whose work explored identity, sexuality, family memory and the experience of growing up in a Jewish immigrant milieu. Returning to education in her late thirties, she graduated from Columbia University and soon became a Yaddo fellow, beginning a long association with major American artists’ colonies.

Early life and education

Konecky was born Edith Rubin on August 1, 1922, in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Harry and Elizabeth Smith Rubin. Konecky has an older brother, Martin. Harry's father had escaped the pogroms in Eastern Europe, immigrating to the United States, where he became a prosperous dress manufacturer. Elizabeth's mother, Ida Berlin, ran away from her family in Kiev at a very young age because she was promised to be married to someone she did not like, ending up in New York. She was, perhaps, the most important influence on Edith as she was growing up. Elizabeth's father, Max Shmitoff, later changed to Smith at Ellis Island, was said to have pulled a Cossack off his horse during a pogrom at their Jewish village near Minsk, in Belarus, killing him with his own sword.

  • Fiction and the Facts of Life (2011) Maplewood, N.J.: Hamilton Stone Editions.
  • Love and Money (2006) Maplewood, N.J.: Hamilton Stone Editions.
  • View to the North (2004) Maplewood, N.J.: Hamilton Stone Editions.
  • Past Sorrows and Coming Attractions (2000) Maplewood, N.J.: Hamilton Stone Editions.
  • A Place at the Table (1989) New York: Random House.
  • Allegra Maud Goldman (1976) New York: Harper & Row.

References

  • Edith Konecky papers at the Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Special Collections