This event is co-sponsored by EJCC, the Netherlee & Clarkston Charitable Trust and Edinburgh Jewish Studies.
Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren’t so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls (how disappointing); they may well stumble into Russian Town, rumoured to be a dangerous place for Jews (it is). As three young boys set off from Mezritsh with a case of bristle brushes to sell in the great market town of Lublin, wearing shoes of uneven quality and possessed of decidedly unequal enthusiasms, they quickly find that nothing, not Elya’s jokes nor Kiva’s prayers nor Ziv’s sublime irritatingness, can prepare them for the future as it comes barrelling down to meet them. Absurd, riveting, alarming, hilarious, the dialogue devastatingly sharp and the pacing extraordinary, Lublin is a journey to nowhere that changes everything it touches.
Manya Wilkinson is a Jewish New Yorker who has lived in the North of England for over twenty years. Her novel Lublin published by And Other Stories (2024) and is the winner of the Wingate Literary Prize 2025 and the RSL Encore Award for best second novel 2025. Until recently Manya was a senior lecturer on the MA in prose and scriptwriting at Newcastle University, with a special interest in voice and dramatic structure in both script and fiction. She is currently mentoring writers and teaching prose workshops both on-line and in person. Her first novel, Ocean Avenue, was published by Serpent’s Tail. Her short stories have been published by Comma Press. Her radio dramas have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Afternoon Play, Saturday Drama, Writing the Century, and Woman’s Hour. She has also written several stage plays and film scripts and contributes regularly to the writing magazine, Mslexia, with articles and guides to writing drama and prose fiction.
Edinburgh Jewish Literary Society 