Jennifer Steil
Jennifer Steil’s new novel Exile Music (Viking) was inspired by the Jewish community of La Paz, Bolivia, where she lived for four years. Many of these Jews or their ancestors fled the Nazis in Europe in the 1930s to find sanctuary in Bolivia, one of only three countries still granting visas to Jews by 1938. Although her current home is in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Jennifer and her 10-year-old daughter were recently evacuated to London, England. Much of her work thus far concerns people living far from home, either by choice or necessity, and explores themes of displacement, identity, and home.