More literary honors for Elizabeth Graver's 'Kantika'
Professor of English Elizabeth Graver’s acclaimed 2023 novel Kantika—lauded by The New York Times as an “exquisitely imagined family saga [that] spans cultures and continents”—continues to garner prestigious literary honors.
In September, Kantika was announced by the Massachusetts Center for the Book (MCB) as the winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction for 2023, while Graver received the Boston Authors Club’s Julia Ward Howe Prize in Fiction.
Graver’s fifth novel, Kantika 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.
“This well-researched novel is a multigenerational tale of a Sephardic family’s dislocations, hardships, and joys,” according to the MCB award announcement.
Among other literary honors, Kantika—named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Historical Fiction novels and 100 Notable Books of 2023—won the 2023 Edward Lewis Wallant Award, one of the oldest and most prestigious Jewish literary awards in the United States. It also was chosen as a National Jewish Book Award winner, with The Sephardic Culture Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy.
The MCB program—now in its 24th year—celebrates significant achievements in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature by Massachusetts writers, illustrators, and translators. Award winners are chosen by a panel of judges from the writing, academic, publishing, bookselling, and library communities, who come together to select “books that haunt and inspire, books that motivate us to think, feel, and learn,” according to MCB Executive Director Courtney Andree.
MCB is the state affiliate of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, charged with developing, supporting, and promoting cultural programming to advance the cause of books, reading, and libraries across Massachusetts.
On October 8, MCB will host a celebration of the 2024 Massachusetts Book Awards at the State House.
Graver received her Julia Ward Howe Prize award on September 17 at the Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill. Awarded for more than two decades and named after the Boston Authors Club’s first president, the prizes—in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and the young reader categories—recognize exceptional books by Boston-area authors.
“I’m thrilled that Kantika has received the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction from the wonderful Massachusetts Center for the Book,” Graver wrote on .Ěý“I feel so lucky to live in a state with such a rich literary history and current scene and to be, with this award, in the company of dozens of writers I admire, both on this year’s list and from years past.
“I wish my grandmother were alive to clap and sing out in her inimitable way upon learning of this beautiful award.”Ěý
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