Ursula Hegi

"When I came to this country as an 18-year old," Hegi reflects, "I found that Americans of my generation knew more about the Holocaust than I did. When I was growing up, you could not ask about it; it was absolutely taboo. We grew up with the silence." For this reason, when people asked Ursula Hegi where she was from, she used to wish she could answer Norway or Holland. Hegi soon discovered that it was impossible to leave behind one's origins. "The older I got, the more I realized that I am inescapably encumbered with the heritage of my country's history."

While her first two books, Intrusions, and Unlearned Pleasures and Other Stories, were set in the U.S., it was with her third book, Floating in My Mother's Palm, that Hegi took the important step of exploring her conflict over her cultural identity. As she explains "My own acute discomfort at being German is very much at the core of my writing."

In Floating in My Mother's Palm, Hegi first introduces readers to the inhabitants of Burgdorf, a fictional German town loosely based on her hometown during the 1950s. With her "prequel," Stones from the River, Hegi extends her portrayal of Burgdorf's characters and the exploration of her own heritage by including the several decades preceding World War II and its immediate aftermath.

Stones from the River is Hegi's attempt to understand the silence of towns throughout Germany that tolerated persecution of Jews during the war and enabled a community to quiet its conscience once the truths of the Holocaust were revealed. Hegi immersed herself in historical material on the Holocaust to write the book. "It was an important part of my journey, of integrating the past within myself." She also asked to interview her aged godmother about the period, who, to her surprise, complied. Since then, Hegi has published another Burgdorf-based novel, The Passion of Emma Blau, and a nonfiction work, Tearing the Silence:On Being German in America.

Her books have been translated into many languages, including Hebrew and German. Hegi has served as a juror for the National Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle Awards. The winner of numerous honors and awards, including an NEA and a Pen/Faulkner, Hegi is a visiting professor in the MFA Program at Stony Brook Southampton. She lives in New York State with her husband Gordon Gagliano, an artist and architect.

Bibliography:

The Worst Thing I've Done (2007)

Sacred Time (2004)

Trudi and Pia (2004)

Hotel of the Saints (2001)

The Vision of Emma Blau (2000)

Tearing the Silence (1997)

Salt Dancers (1996)

Stones from the River (1995)

Floating in My Mother's Palm (1990)

Unlearned Pleasures and Other Stories (1988)

Intrusions (1981)

Links:

Marrie Stone interviews Ursula Hegi (audio)
BookVideos.tv (video)
Washingtonpost.com article
New York Times article
Hegi's Simon & Schuster page