Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

Purdue Press memoir to be focus of virtual book talk at University of London Library

November 4th, 2020

On November 16, 2020, The Wiener Holocaust Library at the University of London will welcome Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger, Dr. Rachel Polonsky, Dr. Mika Provata-Carlone and musician Robert Max to a virtual discussion of music, art, and how they can sustain humans in recognition of the recent publication of Escaping Extermination: Hungarian Prodigy to American Musician, Feminist, and Activist by Agi Jambor, edited by Frances Pinter.

Agi Jambor wrote this memoir shortly after the close of World War II and it is now being published for the first time. From the hell that was the siege of Budapest to a fresh start in America, Jambor describes how she and her husband escaped the extermination of Hungary’s Jews through a combination of luck and wit.

You can learn more about the event and register for free here. 

Details available at this link on how to order the book with a discount from our UK-based distribution partner Eurospan. USA-based buyers can find our domestic discount information below.

Agi Jambor was born in 1909 in Budapest, Hungary, the Jewish daughter of a wealthy businessman and a prominent piano teacher. A piano prodigy, she was playing Mozart before she could read and at the age of twelve made her debut with a symphony orchestra. She studied under Zoltán Kodály and was a pupil of Edwin Fischer at the Berlin University of the Arts. Arriving in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1947, she was widowed shortly thereafter. She became a professor of classical piano at Bryn Mawr College and was briefly married to the actor Claude Rains from 1959 to 1960. Agi’s life in America was full of intellectual and musical abundance. She was active in opposing McCarthyism and fought against the Vietnam War, giving proceeds from concerts to her charity that bought food for Vietnamese children. She was much loved by students as a charming yet feisty role model. She died in 1997 in Baltimore.

You can get 30% off of Escaping Extermination and any other Purdue University Press book by ordering from our website and using the discount code PURDUE30 at checkout.