Vine Awards for Jewish Literature Announce Shortlists in Four Literary Categories

Today the annual Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature announced their shortlists in four different genres of writing, with nominations for decorated writers such as David Bezmozgis, Ayelet Tsabari, and Eric Walters.

Rewarding literary excellence from Jewish Canadian authors and non-Jewish Canadian authors writing on Jewish themes, the award in each category comes with a $10,000 prize.

The 2020 winners will be announced at an online ceremony on November 18, 2020.

The 2020 Vine Awards Shortlists

Fiction:

• David Bezmozgis, Immigrant City (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
• Sarah Leavitt, Agnes, Murderess (Freehand Books)
• David Szalay, Turbulence (McClelland & Stewart)

History:

• Zelda Abramson & John Lynch, The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home After the Holocaust (Between the Lines)
• Matti Friedman, Spies of No Country (Signal, McClelland & Stewart)
• Heidi J.S. Tworek, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945 (Harvard University Press)

Nonfiction:

• Naomi K. Lewis, Tiny Lights for Travellers (University of Alberta Press)
• Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd)
• Diana Wichtel, Driving to Treblinka (Heritage House Publishing)

Young Adult/Children's Literature:

• Kathy Kacer, Masters of Silence (Annick Press)
• Edeet Ravel, A Boy is Not a Bird (Groundwood Books)
• Eric Walters and Kathy Kacer, Broken Strings (Penguin Random House Canada Young Readers)

The 2020 Jury, composed of authors Judy Batalion, Allan Levine, and Shani Mootoo, reviewed 55 entries to the four categories from publishers across the country in order to determine the shortlists. 

The Vine Awards are support by a donation from the Lillian and Norman Glowinsky Family Foundation. The foundation originally took over the awards in 2004 as the the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards. They were first founded in 1988 by Adam Fuerstenberg as the Canadian Jewish Book Awards.

Since 1994, the Koffler Centre of the Arts have administered the prizes. For more information, please visit the Koffler website.