The Canadian Jewish Literary Awards has announced the 2018 winning books in eight catagories. Now in its fourth year, the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards recognizes and rewards the finest Canadian Jewish writing.
The Panic Room by Rebecca Păpacaru (Nightwood Editions) has won in the Poetry category.
Seven other winners have been declared in the following categories: fiction, memoir/biography, history, scholarship, holocaust literature, Yiddish, and books for children and youth.
“Rebecca Păpacaru’s poetic range in The Panic Room is expansive and impressive.” says the award’s press release. “Assembled in a sophisticated arc, it holds together as a book, not just a series of poems. The thematic linkages, word choices and concepts are evidence of the way a novel’s character changes over time, rather than a series of snapshots. The range of identifying references to Judaism, Jews and Jewishness — historic, psycho-spiritual, and religious — leave you with a range of inter-ethnic encounters which are a challenge to unpack and makes the experience of Canada ring true.”
The awards ceremony will be held on October 14, 2018 in Toronto. Authors will read from their works and a dessert reception will follow. The Award-winning books will be available for purchase and the authors will autograph their books.
Rebecca Păpucaru‘s work has appeared in journals such as The Antigonish Review, PRISM international, The Malahat Review, The Dalhousie Review and Event. She has been anthologized in I Found it at the Movies: An Anthology of Film Poems (Guernica Editions, 2014) and Best Canadian Poetry in English (2010). Her debut collection The Panic Room was a finalist for the A.M. Klein Award Prize for Poetry. She lives in Sherbrooke, QC.