Ruth Franklin, the author of The Many Lives of Anne Frank (Jan. 2025), will discuss the transformation of Anne Frank (1929-1945) from ordinary Jewish teenager during the Holocaust to cultural icon today during a free talk and book signing at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 4, in the multi-purpose room of the Campus Center West at the University at Albany. The program, open to the community, is on the uptown campus, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany.

Franklin, chronicles and shares Anne’s life while also telling the story of the diary—its drafts, reception, and its message for today.

Franklin is a former editor at The New Republic and a nonfiction writing teacher at Columbia University.

Previous books are Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction and Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.

The program is co-sponsored by the New York State Writing Institute  the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York and UAlbany’s Writing & Critical Inquiry Program (WCI).