Raphael is considered one of America's earliest "Second Generation" writers, publishing fiction that explores the impact of the Holocaust on the children of survivors from the late 1970s onward. Referring to himself as an "escaped academic," he also examines in fiction and non-fiction the intersection of sexual orientation with larger contexts of Jewish culture and religious tradition, as in his haunting and sensitive first novel Winter Eyes (1992).
Raphael's first collection of short stories, Dancing on Tisha b'Av (1990) won a 1990 Lambda Literary Award, and some of those stories were set at MSU. Let's Get Criminal (1996) is the first title of the Nick Hoffman series of mysteries, taking place in fictional "Michiganapolis" at the "State University of Michigan" where Nick is an English professor. The Edith Wharton Murders (1997) continues the series, which is now in its fifth installment with Burning Down the House (2001). Raphael's essays, constituting a cumulative self-portrait, have been gathered into Journeys & Arrivals: On Being Gay and Jewish (1996).
For more information on Lev Raphael, please visit his home page, http://www.levraphael.com
Click here to see Special Collections' holdings of author Lev Raphael's work
To hear Lev Raphael read from his works, go to: http://www.lib.msu.edu/vincent/writertest/january22.htm
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