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Todd Hasak-Lowy

Born: in Detroit, Michigan
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Hasak-Lowy moved to Evanston, Illinois in 2010 and resides there still today.

Biography: Todd Hasak-Lowy has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkley. For eight years, he was a professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at the University of Florida. During that time, he published scholarly articles and the book, Here and Now: History, Nationalism, and Realism in Modern Hebrew Fiction. He has also translated the books. Since moving to Chicago, Hasak-Lowy has turned to writing full-time and has taught various creative writing courses at different institutions including the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois - Chicago. While his first books were written more for an adult audience, he has since moved into writing books geared more toward young readers.


Awards:
  • '''''33 Minutes'''''
  • -- 2015 ILLINOIS READS Book '''''Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You'''''
  • -- 2016 ILLINOIS READS Book '''''Somewhere There is Still a Sun'''''
  • -- National Jewish Book Award Finalist, Young Adult Literature, Jewish Book Council

Primary Literary Genre(s): Fiction; Non-Fiction

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers; Young adult readers

Twitter: https://twitter.com/toddhasaklowy
Website: http://www.toddhasaklowy.com


Selected Titles

33 minutes /
ISBN: 1442445009 OCLC: 785390172

Aladdin, New York : 2013.

An epic lunch period leads to a fateful showdown as small, skinny seventh-grader Sam's former best friend--now a popular athlete--promises to beat Sam up at recess in exactly thirty-three minutes.

Captives :
ISBN: 038552773X OCLC: 192080586

Spiegel & Grau, New York : 2008.

Disaffected and angry screenwriter Daniel Bloom finds that his revenge fantasy about a nameless assassin who is taking down evil corporate executives and politicians is becoming all too real.

Here and now :
ISBN: 9780815631576 OCLC: 183928631

Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, N.Y. : 2008.

The Emergence of Zionism in the late nineteenth century and the evolution of Zionist society in Palestine were profoundly influenced by the Hebrew literature of the day. As Todd Hasak-Lowy cogently argues in this book, Hebrew authors wrote with the belief that accurately representing Jewish society - including its history - in their texts would both record the past and establish its future course. Hasak-Lowy traces the tensions between the extraliterary - the historical, social, and political - and the literary - the aesthetic, formal, and stylistic - in Hebrew fiction. Focusing on canonical texts by S. Y. Agnon, Y. H. Brenner, S. Y. Abramovitz, and S. Yizhar, the author establishes how modern Hebrew writers galvanized Jewish nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe and later articulated its character in twentieth-century Palestine.--BOOK JACKET.

Me being me is exactly as insane as you being you /
ISBN: 1442495731 OCLC: 877077441

Through a series of lists, a narrator reveals how fifteen-year old Darren's world was rocked by his parents' divorce just as his brother, Nate, was leaving for college, and a year later when his father comes out as gay, then how he begins to deal with it all after a stolen weekend with Nate and his crush, Zoey.

Roses and radicals :
ISBN: 0425291464 OCLC: 1002302603

"A history of the women's movement and the fight to ratify the 19th Amendment-giving women the right to vote in 1920"--

Somewhere there is still a sun /
ISBN: 144248487X OCLC: 892620492

When the Nazis invade Czechoslovakia in 1941, twelve-year-old Michael and his family are deported from Prague to the Terezin concentration camp, where his mother's will and ingenuity keep them from being transported to Auschwitz and certain death.

The task of this translator /
ISBN: 0156031124 OCLC: 56730574

Harcourt, Orlando : ©2005.

"The Task of This Translator marks the debut of a writer of extraordinary talent. In these seven stories, Todd Hasak-Lowy finds entry into daunting matters such as genocide and obesity through the absurd experiences of a series of unlikely protagonists." "A journalist sets out to write an investigative piece on a dieting company that uses bodyguards to protect overeaters from themselves, but loses his bearings when he becomes a client and is paired up with a bodyguard of his own. In the coffee shop of Israel's Holocaust memorial museum, a stale pastry triggers a brawl between an American tourist and the Israeli cashier. An unwilling and mostly unqualified slacker finds himself cast into the role of translator for the bitter reunion of a family torn apart years earlier by unspecified brutality."--BOOK JACKET.

We are power :
ISBN: 141974111X OCLC: 1147934343

"We Are Power brings to light the incredible individuals who have used nonviolent activism to change the world. The book explores questions such as what is nonviolent resistance and how does it work? In an age when armies are stronger than ever before, when guns seem to be everywhere, how can people confront their adversaries without resorting to violence themselves? Through key international movements-from the freedom of India from British rule to American labor unions and civil rights to actions taken by high school and college students around the world-this book discusses the components of nonviolent resistance. It answers the question "Why nonviolence?" by showing how nonviolent movements have succeeded again and again in a variety of ways, in all sorts of places, and always in the face of overwhelming odds. The book includes endnotes, a bibliography, and an index"--

 

 

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