Anita Diamant (born June 27, 1951) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction books.[1] She has published five novels, the most recent of which is The Boston Girl, a New York Times best seller.[2] She is best known for her 1997 novel The Red Tent, which eventually became a best seller and book club favorite.[3][4] She has also written six guides to contemporary Jewish practice, including The New Jewish Wedding,Living a Jewish Life, and The New Jewish Baby Book, as well as a collection of personal essays, Pitching My Tent.
Her first book was The New Jewish Wedding, published in 1985, and updated in 2022 as "The Jewish Wedding Now." She has also published five other guidebooks about contemporary Jewish practice: "The New Jewish Baby Book," "Living a Jewish Life, "Choosing a Jewish Life," and "How to Raise a Jewish Child,
Her debut as a fiction writer came in 1997 with The Red Tent, which became an international best-seller. Other novel followed: Good HarborThe Last Days of Dogtown.[6] The latter is an account of life in a dying Cape Ann, Massachusetts village, Dogtown, in the early 19th century.[1]
The novel, Day After Night (2009), tells the stories of four women survivors of the Holocaust who, in the period following the end of the war and before the founding of the State of Israel, find themselves detained in the Atlit detention center, just south of Haifa, in the what was then called the British Mandate of Palestine]].[1]
In 2014 she published the novel The Boston Girl, a coming-of-age story about an immigrant girl in the early 20th century.
In 2021, Diamant published a non-fiction work, "Period. End of Sentence. A New Chapter in the fight For Menstrual Justice."
Personal life
Diamant is the founding president of Mayyim Hayyim: Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center, a community-based ritual bath in Newton, Massachusetts.[4][7]
Period. End of Sentence: The New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice (2021)
Autobiography
Pitching My Tent: On Marriage, Motherhood, Friendship, and Other Leaps of Faith (2003)
Guides
The Jewish Wedding Now" (2017, revised edition of "The New Jewish Wedding published in 1985 and revised 2001)
The New Jewish Baby Book (1988, revised 2005)
What to Name Your Jewish Baby (1989)
Living a Jewish Life (1991, revised 2007, with Howard Cooper)
Bible Baby Names: Spiritual Choices from Judeo-Christian Sources (1996)
Saying Kaddish: How to Comfort the Dying, Bury the Dead, and Mourn as a Jew (1998, Revised 2019)
Choosing a Jewish Life: A Handbook for People Converting to Judaism and for Their Family and Friends (Revised, 2020, first published 1998)
How to Raise a Jewish Child: A Practical Handbook for Family Life (2000, with Karen Kushner)*
Journalism
Her work -- reporting and opinion -- has appeared in many publications, including the Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, New England Monthly, Parenting, McCalls, Hadassah, Moment, and online as a contributor to "Cognoscenti," a project of WBUR-FM.
Notes
^ abcdef"Anita Diamant." Contemporary Authors Online. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2015. Retrieved via Biography in Context database, 2017-09-22.
^Cowles, Gregory (December 19, 2014). "Inside the List". Sunday Book Review, The New York Times. Retrieved 2017-09-22. With mention of "Diamant's latest novel, 'The Boston Girl,' new on the hardcover fiction list at No. 12."
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