Konecky, Edith

Dates:

Birth 1922

Biographical notes:

Edith Rubin Konecky was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Harry and Elizabeth Smith Rubin. Her father, the quintessential self-made man, had escaped the pogroms in Eastern Europe, immigrating to America where he would become a prosperous dress manufacturer. This distant, driven character would feature prominently in two of Konecky's most acclaimed novels, Allegra Maud Goldman (1976) and A Place at the Table (1989). Her writing "career," began in high school when she won her first writing prize. She then went on to New York University for two years, leaving before graduation. In 1944, Edith Rubin married Murray L. Konecky and together they would have two children, Michael and Joshua.

Even as she entered into her life as a suburban mother in the 1950s, Edith Konecky did not stop writing, using her daily experiences as fodder for her short stories. She returned to school, graduating from Columbia University in 1961. Only a year later she won a Yaddo fellowship, giving her the space both mentally and physically, to focus on her writing. During the 1960s and into the 1970s, Konecky published several short stories and then in 1976, her widely-aclaimed first novel, Allegra Maud Goldman . Konecky and her husband divorced in 1963 and by the time Allegra appeared, Konecky came out as a lesbian. Her coming out process partially infused her next well-received novel, A Place at the Table (1989). She has continued to publish into the 21st century and as the Jewish Women's Archive notes, "Edith Konecky, despite a small body of work, can lay claim to a large literary achievement" ( http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/konecky-edith ) as she gives voice to a particular generation of women whose lives spanned a period of tremendous social, political, and economic change.

From the guide to the Edith Konecky Papers MS 716., 1957-2011, (Sophia Smith Collection)