Winner of the National Jewish Book Award
Winner of the Edward Lewis Wallant Award
Named a Best Historical Fiction Book and a Notable Book of 2023 by The New York Times
Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Lilith, and Libby
Longlisted for the Mass Book Award
“This exquisitely imagined family saga spans cultures and continents.”
—New York Times, Editors’ Choice & 100 Notable Books of 2023
“A highly readable and poignant tale of dislocation, refuge and resilience.”
—NPR, Best Books of 2023
“In Graver’s vision, migration is never simply a one-way street… Kantika is a meticulous endeavor to preserve the memories of a family, an elegy and a celebration both.”
—Ayten Tartici, The New York Times
"An evocative exploration of cultural inheritances across generations, in particular Sephardic Jewish culture and its ability to endure through familial bonds, even when removed from physical location."
—Association of Jewish Libraries, named a Jewish Fiction Award honor book
“Graver delivers a luminous story of a Sephardic family. Fans of family epics will love this.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Beautiful and lyrical. [Kantika] is a piece of transnational, century-spanning Jewish history.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A remarkable, lyrical work . . . Graver has written an elegant coming-of-age story that is also an epic of the Sephardi diaspora, spanning generations, wars, and continents.”
—Sarah Abrevaya Stein, Jewish Review of Books
“Graver’s paean to resolve and resiliency paints a vivid portrait of spirit and grit.”
—Carol Haggas, Booklist
“Enigmatic and enticing . . . Graver crafts a compelling narrative, weaving in threads of religion and history, feminism and family dynamics, passion and duty, survival and love .”
—Katie Noah Gibson, Shelf Awareness
“Graver’s characters are rendered so realistically that the reader aches as the world turns against them, but the ever-resourceful Rebecca perseveres.”
—Reba Leiding, Library Journal , starred review
"The whole novel feels like the embodiment of the title, “Kantika”—Ladino for song. At the outset, Graver lyrically establishes the multilingual, multireligious, cosmopolitan, and yet concretely local and specific nature of Constantinople."
—The Jewish Chronicle, named a Best Jewish Book of the year
“Beautiful and lyrical. Kantika is a piece of transnational, century-spanning Jewish history.”
—Karen Skinazi, Jewish Journal
“In the end, Kantika‘s heroine triumphs not in a larger-than-life way, but in a way that makes her feel relatable . . . We, too, are invited to enter into the story and make a place for ourselves.”
—Nina B. Lichtenstein, Jewish Book Council, a Hanukkah 2023 Bookshelf pick
“Kantika, like the songs Rebecca sings, is full of sorrow and joy—and very beautiful.”
—Rachel Hall, Lilith Magazine, one of Lilith's "Favorite Reads" of 2023
"Lyrical and literary, and likely, if there is any justice, to stand the test of time."
—Andrew Silow-Carroll, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, named one of the best Jewish books of 2023
“Intimately imagined, lyrically written, and rich with historical detail, Kantika weaves forced displacement, wild reinvention and triumphant healing into a big, border-crossing family saga. Marvelous!”
—Gish Jen, author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon
“Both epic and heartfelt, Kantika belongs in the company of the great twentieth-century immigrant Jewish writers, such as Saul Bellow, Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, and Henry Roth.”
—Joshua Henkin, author of Morningside Heights
"Kantika is an acute and compassionate portrait of displacement and reinvention, and it sings."
—Michael Frank, author of One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World
“A gorgeous accomplishment. In intimate and inventive prose, Elizabeth Graver carries us to the vibrantly drawn streets of Constantinople, Barcelona, Havana and New York. We follow her remarkable characters through grief and hope, and into human connections as delicate as they are profound. This is a novel to get lost in.”
—Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink
“This utterly captivating novel illuminates how one family's history is history. Astonishing work, reminiscent, to my mind, of the best of the great Italian writer Elsa Morante.”
—Peter Orner, author of Maggie Brown & Others
“From the first page, I was swept up and carried along on the migrations of an unforgettable family. Kantika is a gripping story of 20th-century Sephardic exile and reinvention and the longing for homes, both old and new.”
—Tova Mirvis, author of The Book of Separation
“In gorgeous detail, this epic family story restores a lost time and place. Kantika is both an immigrant tale and a hero’s journey as Graver’s extraordinary characters—first among them the indomitable Rebecca—travel between worlds and find ways to refashion their lives.”
—Allegra Goodman, author of Sam
“Kantika is a beautiful, moving and splendidly entertaining evocation of a lost world. Elizabeth Graver looks back at family history with a novelist's eye and a poet's empathy.”
—John Banville, author of The Singularities
“A story of immigration, tenacity, family bonds and change that sits in a liminal space between fact and fiction, making for fascinating reading.”
—Jaime Herndon, Hadassah Magazine, named a Best Jewish Book of 2023
“[Kantika] is about a wealthy Turkish Jewish family whose fortunes are reversed by the First World War and whose members are dispersed to Barcelona, Cuba and finally New York. And yet while it has all the drama one might expect from such journeys and the novels about them, it remains both lyrical and literary, and likely, if there is any justice, to stand the test of time.”
—Andrew Silow-Carroll, Jewish Telegraphic Agency
“Writing with such candor is a feat . . . A lush but unsentimental drama.”
—The Forward
“A beautifully written story of loss and love, of survival and sanctuary, of a search for home and identity. At its heart, it is a story of family.”
—Jennifer Huberdeau, The Berkshire Eagle
“Ladino music threads its way through the text and provides a constant, unifying metaphor for the novel: whether sad or joyous, sacred or secular, personal history or fiction, Kantika sings.”
—Susan Lowell, Historical Novel Society, Editors’ Choice
“Kantika is Elizabeth Graver’s poignant homage to her grandmother, but it is also a testament to her talent as a storyteller, to make a narrative so believable and compelling, and, indeed, sometimes funny, just as it is in life.”
—Roberta Silman, The Arts Fuse
“Graver’s lyrical prose sets the tone for the impressive story she’s about to tell.”
—Susan Blumberg-Kason, Asian Review of Books
“The Sephardi woman has finally entered the literary conversation. I hope she’s here to stay.”
—Hannah Srour-Zackon, The Canadian Jewish News
2023-02-24
Based on the life of the author's Sephardic grandmother, complete with real names and photographs, this generational saga traces a family's journey of exile.
The novel is divided into three sections set in different places: There’s early-20th-century Constantinople, where prosperous Jews, Christians, and Muslims intermingle easily and where Rebecca Cohen lives as a child; Spain, where her family reluctantly immigrates in 1925; and the United States, where Rebecca eventually settles but never feels at home. Rebecca’s happy childhood ends abruptly in 1914 when the French-speaking Catholic school she attends abruptly closes and the previously oblivious 12-year-old becomes aware that war has broken out. Her best friend immigrates to America; Rebecca’s family is increasingly less prosperous. Ten years later, her father is financially ruined, and his beloved Turkey has become as intolerant of Jews as of Armenians and Greeks. Offered a low-level job at a small synagogue in Barcelona, he moves Rebecca’s family (minus an older sister who’s left for Cuba) to Spain, the country their ancestors fled during the Inquisition. Rebecca builds a successful dressmaking business there but, afraid of spinsterhood, rushes into marrying the only Jewish bachelor available and suffers in a deeply unhappy marriage. Her husband dies shortly after the birth of their second son. Although world events remain mostly in the background, rising fascism casts its shadow. In 1934, Rebecca accepts an invitation from her older sister, now living in New York, to marry the widower of an old friend who'd died in childbirth in Queens and immigrate to America. Yes, this sounds like soap opera, or a somber The Brady Bunch, as Rebecca and her new husband blend her sons, his daughter, and the children they bear together into one family. This longer final section lacks the novel’s earlier vibrancy, perhaps because writing about people she personally remembers constrains Graver. That’s too bad, because in imagining places (including a dreamy Cuba) and people from earlier times, Graver’s poignantly elegiac prose often soars.
A straightforward family story written with a poet’s sensitivity and flair.
