About

Elizabeth Graver’s fifth novel, Kantika, was inspired by her grandmother Rebecca, who was born into a Sephardic Jewish family in Istanbul and whose shape-shifting life journey took her to Spain, Cuba and New York. Kantika was awarded the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, the Julia Ward Howe Award, the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, and a National Jewish Book Award. It was named a Best Historical Fiction Book of 2023 and Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times, and a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Lilith and Libby, and translated into German and Turkish. Elizabeth’s fourth novel, The End of the Point, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award in Fiction. Her other novels are Awake, The Honey Thief, and Unravelling. Her story collection, Have You Seen Me?, won the 1991 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and Best American Essays. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and NEA, she teaches at Boston College.

Featured Work

Kantika

2023
Book cover with title of novel Kantika in gold and a cracked Turkish tile

A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family’s displacement across four countries, Kantika—“song” in Ladino—follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way—a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge—her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old. Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body—in work, art and love—serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life.

Other Works

  • The End of the Point

    2013

  • Awake

    2004

  • The Honey Thief

    1999

  • Unravelling

    1997

  • Have You Seen Me? (stories)

    1993

Awards and Recognition

  • National Jewish Book Award for Sephardic Culture, 2024
  • Edward Lewis Wallant Award, 2024
  • Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction, 2024
  • Julia Ward Howe Award, 2024
  • National Book Award Fiction Longlist, 2014
  • Drue Heinz Literature Prize, 1993
  • Guggenheim Fellowship, 1997