Accolades for 'Kantika'
Professor of English Elizabeth Graver’s critically acclaimed latest novel, Kantika—named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Historical Fiction novels and 100 Notable Books of 2023—has received additional literary accolades.
Published last year, Graver’s fifth novel was inspired by her grandmother, who was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Istanbul and whose shape-shifting life journey took her to Spain, Cuba, and New York.
In January, the book was named the winner of the 2023 Edward Lewis Wallant Award, one of the oldest and most prestigious Jewish literary awards in the United States. Kantika also was honored last month as a National Jewish Book Award winner, with The Sephardic Culture Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy.
Elizabeth Graver (Caitlin Cunningham)
“Kantika is both very close to home in that it’s inspired by my family history, and quite far afield in that I had to learn a huge amount about far-flung places and the past,” said Graver, author of several award-winning novels and short stories. “The recognition it has gotten through these prizes is thrilling to me, both because I devoted years to this project and because it tells the story of a vanishing language and culture and a woman—my grandmother, Rebecca—who never had the opportunity to share her story with the world.”
The book debuted to wide critical acclaim, described as an “exquisitely imagined family saga [that] spans cultures and continents,” by The New York Times and named a best book of the year by National Public Radio (“a highly readable and poignant tale of dislocation, refuge and resilience”), Lilith Magazine, and Libby.
The Wallant Award, given by the University of Hartford’s Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, was established by Dr. and Mrs. Irving Waltman of West Hartford in 1963, and honors the memory of the late Edward Lewis Wallant, author of The Pawnbroker and other works of fiction. It is presented to a writer whose published work of fiction is deemed to have significance to American Jewish history and culture.
Inaugurated in 1950, the National Jewish Book Awards is the longest-running North American awards program of its kind and is considered the most prestigious, according to the organization. The awards—which recognize authors, and encourage reading, of outstanding English-language books of Jewish interest—are made by the Jewish Book Council, founded in 1943 and the longest-running organization devoted exclusively to the support and celebration of Jewish literature.
Kantika also won an Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award, and was chosen for San Francisco’s Jewish Community Library’s “One Bay One Book 2023” program. This includes a series of virtual lectures organized around the themes of the book; Graver will speak in May
The German translation of Kantika came out on February 20; a Turkish edition is forthcoming. After the paperback edition is released on April 16, Graver will appear at events in Newton and Boston; for information on these and about Graver’s other work, visit elizabethgraver.com.