The first offi­cial ghet­to was estab­lished in Venice in 1516. Jews were locked in from sun­set to sun­rise in Canareg­gio, in the north­ern­most area of Venice. Sar­ra Copia: A Locked-in Life is his­tor­i­cal fic­tion based on the title char­ac­ter, who lived there from her birth in 1592 until her death 49 years lat­er. Sarra’s father, a suc­cess­ful mer­chant, encour­aged and sup­port­ed her sec­u­lar as well as Hebrew edu­ca­tion. She stud­ied clas­si­cal lit­er­a­ture, music, and sci­ence, wrote poet­ry, and, years after her father’s death, estab­lished a lit­er­ary salon in the ghet­to. For three years, Sarra’s salon flour­ished, attend­ed reg­u­lar­ly by Catholic poets, intel­lec­tu­als, and priests — until one priest, whom she con­sid­ered a friend, pub­licly accused her of heresy, putting Sar­ra and the entire Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in jeop­ardy from the Inqui­si­tion. The novel­la begins when Sara is eight. It por­trays Sarra’s fam­i­ly rela­tion­ships, takes us inside her salon, and explores her strong but trou­bled con­nec­tions with the Chris­t­ian world, a world that nev­er for­gave her for being a Jew.