Says editor of Steimberg: “During the preceding months, [Steimberg] and I were in touch a number of times . . . Even in the short time we corresponded, it was obvious what an unusual person she was: full of warmth and completely unpretentious.”

Click to read Steimberg���Ĵ�ý�s excerpted novel. Her text grapples with tensions of faith, social status, and coming-of-age in a devoutly Catholic society: ���Ĵ�ý�. . .we never discuss our respective misery,���Ĵ�ý� her middle-school narrator confesses. ���Ĵ�ý�In our class there are at least two girls who are driven to school by a private chauffeur. It���Ĵ�ý�s a sure bet they don���Ĵ�ý�t leave used sanitary napkins under their dressers. And they don���Ĵ�ý�t carry a thermos with hot coffee and milk into their bedrooms, either, in order to be able to get up in the icy mornings when it���Ĵ�ý�s colder inside the house than out.���Ĵ�ý� Steimberg poignantly and precisely captures the confusion and insecurity of adolescence, as well as the devastating sense of ���Ĵ�ý�otherness���Ĵ�ý� experienced by her Jewish narrator.

Following the excerpt, translator shares a moving tribute to Steimberg. The author���Ĵ�ý�s irrepressible, joyful spirit comes to life in Labinger���Ĵ�ý�s prose: ���Ĵ�ý�Alicia never distinguished between the minutia of everyday life ���Ĵ�ý� the aroma of coffee, a recipe for pastel de papas, the intimate language of eroticism and the erotic intimacy of language ���Ĵ�ý� and her constant preoccupation with the ���Ĵ�ý�big,���Ĵ�ý� transcendental questions. Like most great souls, Alicia didn���Ĵ�ý�t take herself too seriously.���Ĵ�ý�