| Elizabeth Graver’s fifth novel, Kantika, was inspired by the migration story of her Turkish Sepharic grandmother, whose journey took her from Turkey to Spain, Cuba and New York. Turkish, German and audio editions are forthcoming. Her novel The End of the Point was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award and selected as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. 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, Best American Essays, and Prize Stories, the O. Henry Awards. She teaches at Boston College. The story of Kantika, based on the life of Graver’s grandmother, opens in Constantinople in 1907 and spans five decades, making stops in Barcelona and Havana but ultimately ending in New York City in 1950. While modern Jews everywhere are suffering as a result of the two World Wars, it’s also a period of great upheaval for Sephardic Jews in Islamic lands — in this case, Turkey. Through the specific experiences of the Cohen/Levy family, we learn about the trials and tribulations shared by this generation of Jews: emigration and immigration, loss, nostalgia, separation from family, war, and financial loss and insecurity. But we also bear witness to the intimate and small joys that are found in daily living, faith, work, friendship, and life-cycle events. Graver includes a family photo at the beginning of each chapter, which provides another level of (visual) wealth and anchors the novel to its nonfictional source. The author imbues her family history with imagined exchanges, gestures, thoughts, and dreams, creating multi-dimensional characters with whom it is easy to empathize.
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