NEW YORK (Press Release) –La Jolla-based nonagenarian, internationally recognized psychologist and author Edith Eva Eger has won a Christopher Award for “The Choice: Embrace the Possible,” (Scribner/Simon & Schuster). It is one of 12 books for adults and young people by 19 authors and illustrators to be celebrated, along with the writers, producers and directors of 9 feature films and TV/Cable programs, on May 17, 2018 at the 69th annual Christopher Awards in New York.
In her book Dr Eger shared her Holocaust experience—barely surviving life in Auschwitz at 16–and the stories of those she has helped ever since. Today her patients include survivors of abuse and soldiers suffering from PTSD. Many live within a mind that has become a prison, she wrote. She showed how freedom becomes possible once we confront our suffering.
A native of Hungary, where as a teenager she wanted to represent her country in the Olympics as a gymnast, her life was interrupted in 1944 when she and her family were sent to the concentration camp. Despite overwhelming odds, she survived–pulled from a pile of bodies, barely alive when the camp was liberated. She subsequently moved with her husband to the United States, worked in a factory while raising her young family, went on to graduate with a PhD from the University of Texas and became an eminent psychologist. She maintains a busy clinical practice and lectures around the world.
The Christopher Awards were created in 1949 to celebrate authors, illustrators, writers, producers and directors whose work “affirms the highest values of the human spirit.” The Christophers, a nonprofit organization founded in 1945 by Maryknoll Father James Keller, is rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition of service to God and humanity. The ancient Chinese proverb—“It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”— guides its publishing, radio, and awards programs. More information about The Christophers is available at www.christophers.org.
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Preceding provided by The Christophers