Join us for an evening with author Elizabeth Graver, who is receiving the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, presented by the University of Hartford’s Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, for her novel Kantika.

The Edward Lewis Wallant Award is one of the oldest and most prestigious Jewish literary awards in the United States. The annual award recognizes a Jewish writer, preferably unrecognized, whose published work of fiction is deemed to have significance for American Jews. Learn more here

Kantika is Graver’s fifth novel and 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 named a Best Historical Fiction Book and Notable Book of 2023 by The New York Times and a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Lilith, and Libby. German and Turkish editions are forthcoming.

Graver’s fourth novel, The End of the Point, was long-listed for the 2013 National Book Award in Fiction 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, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, and Best American Essays. She teaches at Boston College.

This event will be held in the Harry Jack Gray Center on the University of Hartford campus.

Co-sponsored by the Avon Free Public Library and Maurice Greenberg Center.

Register directly with the Greenberg Center at mgcjs@hartford.edu