Shura | An Evening with Batia Cohen with introductions by Nancy Frehling

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Shura tells the true story of a Jewish woman born in Lithuania at the beginning of the Great War. As a teenager she uncovers a secret that sets her on a life-altering course.
Already a wife and mother when World War II arrives, she struggles to survive as persecution intensifies. She leaps from a train bound for Majdanek, a Nazi extermination camp, hides in the Belarusian woods, and endures the rest of the war with the Bielski resistance-the same partisan group later depicted in the 2008 film Defiance (starring Daniel Craig).
Against the odds she survives and rebuilds a life in Mexico under the name Shura.
Lyrical and intimate in tone, the novel centers on the day-to-day resilience of its protagonist and examines how memory, longing, and the traces of love shape a life lived across exile and loss.
Shura is a translated and revised edition of Una Amapola Entre Cactus, originally published in Mexico in 2012.

Dr. Batia Cohen has a Ph.D. in Mesoamerican Studies from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and a bachelor’s degree in Graphic Design from the Universidad Metropolitana in Mexico City. She was an adjunct professor at Florida International University, and today she lectures at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UM and FIU, along with other institutions. Batia has published numerous articles in specialized Art and History magazines. She collaborates with a cultural magazine in Spanish online; LetraUrbana.com. She is the author of the historical novel Una Amapola entre Cactus; now published in English as Shura.

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