Idra Novey Wins Sami Rohr Prize For Literature
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — Idra Novey, author of the novel “Ways to Disappear,” won the 2017 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.
She takes home $100,000 for winning the prize, which was announced Wednesday by the Jewish Book Council at a ceremony at New York’s Jewish Museum.
Her book explores a translator’s search for a missing author in modern-day Brazil.
The runner-up, Daniel Torday, received the $18,000 Choice Award for “The Last Flight of Poxl West.”
The Rohr Prize, which has been given annually since 2007, considers works of fiction and nonfiction in alternating years.
It was created by the late businessman and philanthropist Sami Rohr to recognize emerging writers who articulate the Jewish experience as determined by a specific work, as well as the author’s potential to make significant ongoing contributions to Jewish literature.
Last year’s winner was Lisa Moses Leff, for her book “The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
