Jeanne Bonner

Jeanne is the translator of an extraordinary short story collection whose title story is considered by film scholars to have inspired Robert Benigni's Oscar-winning movie "Life Is Beautiful." Through these stories, Italian transnational author Edith Bruck, who was born in Hungary in 1931, portrays in colorful detail the lives of poor Hungarian Jews before, during and after World War II, with the Holocaust alternately looming ahead as a fate that can't be avoided or as the horror that can't be outrun. Published by Paul Dry Books, 2025. 

 

For immediate purchase, visit Paul Dry Books.

 

Also available for pre-order at Bookshop.org.

 

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Jeanne reported on memorial stepping stones in Italy that honor victims of the Holocaust for the PBS website, Next Avenue. You can find the stones in Florence, Rome, Milan, Bologna, Venice and Siena. There are also stones in other countries beyond Italy; the first were installed in Germany in the 1990s as part of a historical memory project created by German artist Gunter Demnig. Read the whole story here.

Jeanne on writing about the Brat Pack for CNN:

 

"Thanks to CNN, I got to relive my teen years and write about all of the John Hughes films that meant so much to me and which were at the center of Andrew McCarthy's Brat Pack documentary.

 

"As I wrote for CNN, when the Brat Pack movies came out, I was a Long Island girl, on the cusp of my teen years. The youngest of four daughters, I woke up each day to my clock radio playing Top 40 or New Wave. I read "Seventeen" magazine religiously and frequented the mall, where I could watch coming attractions of new movies — including previews of R-rated films forbidden by my Catholic mother.

 

"The first movie I saw to star some of the Brat Packers was 1983's "The Outsiders," the drama about rival youth gangs in early-'60s Oklahoma. It's not strictly considered a Brat Pack movie, but it features Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez, two charter members of the club. My oldest sister, Tricia, loved it, so I did, too.

 

"I was too young to watch it right away but I read the book a dozen times to match the number of times Tricia saw the movie. I still have my dog-eared paperback of the S.E. Hinton classic, and the faded cover is torn just below the image of actor C. Thomas Howell."

 

Read the CNN story here.

 

(CNN)

Jeanne wrote an essay for the Boston Globe about the physical decline of her aging parents and the way it made her cling to their personal belongings.

 

It begins:

 

I've begun stealing things from my parents.

 

Nothing anyone would notice: a dog-eared restaurant guide published in 1966, the year they married. A map of Switzerland from a trip they took. Also, some mementos of the Apollo space missions that my father worked on as an engineer.

 

I'm no disgruntled offspring but a weary part-time caregiver attempting to prepare for life without her parents.

 

You can read the essay here.

 

(Boston Globe)

 

Jeanne's memoir essay for The New York Times about recording her son's early sounds and words was a joy to write and report! She grew up reading the Times and is a longtime, seven-day-a-week home delivery subscriber, like her parents

 

You can read the essay here.

 

You can listen to a podcast episode about the essay here. 

 

(The New York Times)

MY ALMA MATER IS AUSCHWITZ (translation)

 

Jeanne on translating Edith Bruck's work: 

 

"When I began translating the short stories of Edith Bruck, I wanted to read everything she wrote. I've been translating her poetry for about 5 years and last year, I decided to translate a speech she gave when she was given an honorary doctorate in Rome. What distinguishes Bruck's work -- or one of the elements, at least -- is a fearlessness in calling things by their right names. I can imagine her thinking, 'Well, what do I know about college degrees? When I should have been applying to colleges, I was parentless and stateless, wandering the world and wondering about how humans can be so cruel.' So she flips the question on its head and says she graduated from Auschwitz. Brilliant.

 

"I am grateful World Literature Today gave this piece a good home."

 

To read the essay, "My Alma Mater Is Auschwitz," please click this link.

(World Literature Today)

 

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Jeanne contributed an essay to So Glad They Told Me, an anthology filled with compassionate, honest advice, and the poignant, painful, and sometimes hilarious truths you wish your best girlfriends had told you about motherhood.

 

You can buy the book here.