Krygier, Leora

PERSONAL: Married; children: two. Education: Attended Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—Robbie Anna Hare, Goldfarb & Associates, 721 Gibbon Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Los Angeles Daily Journal, Los Angeles, CA, writer. Los Angeles Juvenile Court, Los Angeles, research attorney for presiding judge; Superior Court of the County of Los Angeles, civil attorney.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

First the Raven, America House, 2002.

When She Sleeps, Toby Press (New Milford, CT), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Leora Krygier "is an author whose intensity and spirit are a match for the times," according to Carolyn Howard-Johnson, writing in SubtleTea.com. "She writes concisely; at the same time the connection of her work to what is happening in the world is so tight that it feels as if it is inspired," Krygier is also a referee for the Los Angeles Superior Court, and she combines a no-nonsense demeanor in court with a deeply poetic sensibility that comes through in her writings, which included the novels First the Raven and When She Sleeps.

In First the Raven Amir, an ex-paratrooper from Israel, feels that his life and marriage are slipping away and that he is growing ∗ldquo;soft" in America. Then an encounter with a mysterious man on a motorcycle leads Amir to a restaurant run by Holocaust survivors, and a world of wounded, sickly, and dying strangers who give him a kind of redemption.

Even more otherworldly is Krygier's second novel, When She Sleeps. The story of two half-sisters who meet in dreams, it is also a tale of buried secrets and cultural separation. Mai is the daughter of U.S. Army surgeon Aaron Freedman, who abandoned her and her mother, a Vietnamese linguist named Linh, after the Vietnam War. Seeking knowledge of her father, Mai finds a way to capture her mother's dreams and send them out into the night. These dream messages are picked up by Freedman's other daughter, Lucy, who lives in America and struggles to understand the rift between her parents. Eventually, Freedman finds Mai in Paris, and brings her home to meet the half-sister she has only known in dreams. Library Journal reviewer Amy Ford noted that the novel "uses the dualities of light and dark, dreaming and waking, and East and West to remarkable ends."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2004, Hazel Rochman, review of When She Sleeps, p. 311.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2004, review of When She Sleeps, p. 885.

Library Journal, November 1, 2004, Amy Ford, review of When She Sleeps, p. 75.

Newsweek International, December 20, 2004, review of When She Sleeps, p. 57.

ONLINE

Leora Krygier Home Page, http://www.leorakrygier.com (March 23, 2005).

MyShelf.com, http://www.myshelf.com/ (December, 2004), Carolyn Howard-Johnson, interview with Krygier.

SubtleTea.com, http://www.subtletea.com/ (March 23, 2005) Carolyn Howard-Hohnson, interview with Krygier.