coming in 2026
Elan's latest collection of flash fiction stories will be published by POET WEAR PRADA, in 2026!
Elan Barnehama’s recent novel, Escape Route, is a coming-of-age story set in 1960s New York City that explores trauma, protest, friendship, and love during a time of global hope and upheaval. His debut novel, Finding Bluefield, was a finalist for the 2014 American Book Fest International Book Awards. His short fiction, personal narratives, and essays have appeared in Paris Lit Up, Jewish Fiction, Drunk HuffPost Gooseberry Pie, Synchronized Chaos, 10x10 Flash Fiction, Boog City, Rough Cut Press, Boston Accent, Red Fez, Syncopation Lit, and elsewhere. At different times, Elan was the flash fiction editor at Forth Magazine LA, a radio news guy, and a mediocre short-order cook. Elan is a New Yorker by default and a Mets fan by geography.
"In Broken Hallelujah, Elan Barnehama crafts flash fictions that echo with loss, memory, and the quiet work of reinvention. Through sibling bonds fractured by grief and rituals shaped by Jewish identity, these stories trace the tender architecture of connection in a world often marked by loneliness. Barnehama’s language is spare, lyrical, and exact. Each story is a tight coil of emotion and insight, perfectly suited to the brevity and punch of the flash form. This collection is both elegy and endurance. Readers will return to these stories for their ache, precision, and unexpected grace."—Francine Witte, author of RADIO WATER
“Elan Barnehama’s Broken Hallelujah, a collection of interwoven flash fiction, resonates like a mixtape assembled from cries of grief and chords of hope. The pieces eulogize the magical nostalgia of small miracles—a neighborhood diner, a vending machine, an extinguished candle—and capture with sharp insight the sacred hidden within the discarded. Following the suicide of his idolized older sister, Emma, Queens-born Ben seeks to reinvent himself in California, finding solace in the quiet wonder of everyday observation. A carefully wrought literary gem, Broken Hallelujah offers readers an homage to all that has been lost and the precious imprint of what remains. Elan Barnehama is a craftsman at the height of his talent, and in this haunting masterwork, he pays tribute to survival, memory and the beauty that endures.”—Jacob M. Appel, author of The School of Anecdotal Medicine
"Elan Barnehama's collection of flash fiction fits perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle, one I wish I'd put together, could frame for my wall, and claim as my own. They are colorful, tightly woven, and offer a glimpse of life with its ups and downs that are psychologically realistic."— Niles Reddick is author of a novel, two novellas, and four collections of short fiction. His latest is Who's Going to Pray for Me Now?
"Beautifully crafted, Elan Barnehama’s Broken Hallelujah is a stunning collection of interconnected stories that follow Ben as he navigates his way through loneliness in search of connection."—Jeff Harvey, Editor, Gooseberry Pie Lit Magazine
Elan Barnehama’s Broken Hallelujah presents truths about life. In each story, Barnehama encapsulates a slice of what many of us have experienced and that his protagonist, Ben, has to face. The ones that particularly affect Ben are the women in his life, but in the title story “Broken Hallelujah,” he must face the truth of death. Ben is a character with whom every reader can associate. This is flash fiction at its best.—Zvi A. Sesling, Author, Secret Behind the Gate and Wheels
Escape Route, set in New York City during the tumultuous late 1960s. The novel is told by a teenager, Zach, a first-generation son of Holocaust survivors and NY Mets fan, who becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and with finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up and incarcerate its Jews. Zach meets Samm, a seventh-generation Manhattanite whose brother has returned from Vietnam with PTSD, which results in his suicide. Together, Samm and Zach explore protest, friendship, music, faith, and love during a time littered with hope and upheaval around the globe.
Available from Amazon, Bookshop, IndieBoutnd, Amazon, B&N
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"Elan Barnehama has given us a powerfåul coming-of-age story set against the tumult of the 1960s, the War in Vietnam, and the power of memory and Jewish identity in a family of Holocaust survivors. This is a beautifully rendered novel, populated by unforgettable characters in an unforgettable time. Barnehama is a literary craftsman at the top of his game. Superb."—Frye Gaillard, author of A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, an NPR Great Read 2018
"With nearly incandescent prose, Barnehama deftly stitches the reader's heart to his glowing characters, then gently tugs and tugs and tugs."—Marvin J. Wolf, author of Abandoned In Hell and They Were Soldiers: The Sacrifices and Contributions of Our Vietnam Veterans.
"Barnehama sets a coming-of-age story against a tumultuous backdrop of war and the civil rights movement while exploring the generational trauma of the Shoah. All wrapped up in a witty protagonist who has just celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. Zach embodies Tikun Olam, a concept in the Jewish faith, seeking to repair the world. This is an emotional story of friendship and hope."—Heidi Slowinki, author of The House on Maple Street, contributor to the Jewish Book Carnival.
"The novel is totally charming, completely engrossing, moving, and real. I love those characters, Zach, because of his way of throwing out those witty remarks, and he has so much heart and courage. And Samm, because she is so cool and holy smokes, if I could only have been anything like her at that age. And the grandfather, of course."—Kiki Smith, Professor of Theatre, Smith College, Obie Award winner for Costume Design
"A precocious adolescent boy comes of age in New York in the tumultuous late Sixties in Elan Barnehama's poignant novel about youth, friendship, and social unrest. Barnehama deftly links the upheavals of the day to his parents' dark past as Holocaust survivors. The Vietnam War bleeds onto the streets; peril is everywhere, but so is hope. Escape Route is a celebration of friendship with a Sixties soundtrack and youthful yearning for a better world at a time when Dylan was pitching, with 'Hendrix at short.'"—William Luvaas, author of The Seductions of Natalie Bach and Ashes Rain Down: A Story Cycle, the Huffington Post's 2013 Book of the Year