Description

Every year, the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award is presented to an author whose first novel has been selected by a panel of judges as a specimen of fine, original writing that will endure as a work of art. At this year's award night, Ramona Ausubel, 2013 winner for No One Is Here Except All of Us, reads from her book and discusses the hard work that carried her from the initial drafts to publication. A book sale, signing and reception follow the presentation.

The event is free and open to all, but please register. Parking is available for a fee in the West Broad Street, West Main Street and West Cary Street parking decks. If special accommodations are needed, or to register offline, please contact the VCU Libraries Events Office at (804) 828-0593.

About the Book

When the violence of World World II encroaches upon the remote Romanian village of Zalischik, its Jewish residents, feeling both trapped by the advancing Axis forces and isolated from all possible help, determine that the one way for them to continue with their lives is to pretend that their peaceful home is the only place in the world. They cast out anything that might tie them to the old world and try to forget the past, but how long will they be able to maintain their small new world before the war comes crashing down upon them?

No Is Here Except All of Us was a New York Times "Editor's Choice" and was named a "Best Book" by both the San Francisco Chronicle and The Huffington Post, and it was a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. Christine Schutt, author of Prosperous Friends and All Souls, describes the novel as "a wise, compassionate book that even in its darkest turns uplifts."

About the Author

Ramona Ausubel is also the author of a collection of short stories, titled A Guide to Being Born, which was also a New York Times "Editor's Choice" and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Story Award. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily, One Story and The Best American Fantasy, and it has been short-listed in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading.

Image: No One Is Here Except All of Us cover and Ramona Ausubel photograph, courtesy of Riverhead Books