When Elaine Kraf died, in 2013, no major publication—or any minor ones, as far as I can tell—ran an obituary. This is perhaps unsurprising; although she had worked as a painter and as the principal of ...

Kraf’s charming and challenging fourth and final novel, now published in the UK, is narrated by a New Yorker who experiences psychotic episodes “I am glad I have the radiance. This time I am wiser,” ...

The Princess Esmeralda loves everyone. She is sweet and trusting, and perhaps the most beautiful woman on Earth—or at least the only part of Earth that matters, which is Manhattan’s 72nd Street, west ...

The Modern Library, an imprint of Random House, has announced the reissues of four novels by Elaine Kraf (1946–2013) as part of its Torchbearers series, which spotlights women writers throughout ...

Around thirty pages into Elaine Kraf’s 1979 novella, The Princess of 72nd Street, we encounter our narrator, Ellen, riding up and down in her apartment elevator, embracing anyone who enters it: “sweet ...

Princess Esmeralda, the ruler of Manhattan’s 72nd Street “from Central Park West to Riverside Park,” has much to do when she attends to her domain. In the grip of a periodic feeling that she calls ...