Anna Kharzeeva wins inaugural book award
Author wins Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject) for her manuscript Warm Walls: A journey from Moscow to Sydney, to self. A memoir with recipes.
When Anna Kharzeeva suddenly left Russia and moved to Sydney in 2022, she realised how much hardship so many people around the world experience. Not only did it inspire her to study counselling, but it also put her family history into perspective.
“I feel like I absolutely have to share our story now,” Kharzeeva told The AJN. “I also really want to bring to light what it’s been like for antiwar Russians since 2022, as I feel our experience has been left in the shadows, understandably so. But it’s important to me that my son and his generation know what it’s been like for us.”
Kharzeeva has just been awarded the inaugural Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject) for her manuscript Warm Walls: A journey from Moscow to Sydney, to self. A memoir with recipes.
Kharzeeva said she didn’t set out to write a book with a Jewish subject, but she very quickly realised why she had to.
“When I started writing I realised just how Jewish my family history is, how hugely important us being Jewish has always been,” she said.
Kharzeeva’s manuscript is a record of her journey as a social historian and food writer who got caught up in historic events, beginning in February 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and following her from Moscow to Istanbul to a new life in Sydney.
Along the way there are flashbacks to the four generations of women who came before her, from Kharzeeva’s mother to her great-great-grandmother. Their story is told in the context of Russian and Jewish history, with the theme of whether to stay or leave Russia being central.
Kharzeeva’s great-great-grandmother made the decision to leave, and almost 100 years later, so did Kharzeeva. In her writing, Kharzeeva reflects on the turmoil she experiences (something she never expected to go through) and reevaluates every aspect of her life, emerging with a sense of strength and purpose.
Each chapter features an object from the kitchen with warm walls (the way that heating runs in the apartment), where her great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and Kharzeeva lived at some point. A recipe to suit the kitchen object is included in each of the 10 chapters.
Kharzeeva said she was deeply touched by the Wingate Award.
“Winning makes me feel so deeply grateful and proud, and I’m so humbled and excited that there is interest in my family’s story,” she recalled.
“After I got the phone call, I was pacing the corridor at my place, tears in my eyes, saying ‘Sura Hana (my great-great-grandmother), Mounya (my great-grandmother), Lena (my grandmother), mama, this is for you’. A solo Oscar speech of sorts. I also feel like I can really say ‘I’m a writer’ now, which means a lot to me, and I have a renewed passion to finish the manuscript and more hope to find a publisher.
“People are telling me they can’t wait to read the book – what more inspiration can I need?”
The Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject) is part of the Australian Jewish Book Awards, established by Shalom in Sydney earlier this year.
The aim of the awards is to recognise excellence in contemporary Australian writing on Jewish subjects, promote the reading of these texts, and to inspire and support current and future Australian authors on Jewish subjects.
The shortlist – Roz Bellamy, Merav Fima, Alex Ryvchin and Sarah Sasson, alongside Kharzeeva – were chosen by judges Lee Kofman, Ramona Koval and Jonathan Kaplan.
Kharzeeva said she was in excellent company on the shortlist.
“I felt very proud when I was shortlisted. The authors shortlisted are all so impressive, it was an honour to be among them,” she said.
“I didn’t think I’d win; I felt like being shortlisted was ‘enough’, already very important recognition and validation of my work.”
But, she said, it means so much given the tough few years she has experienced, and especially given English is not her first language.
“Leaving Russia has been incredibly hard. The past 2.5 years have been a series of losses: my home, sense of belonging, some social connections because of political views, an aunt in Israel, a close family friend in Moscow, and just a week ago a friend in Ukraine, and among all that loss it means so much to have a win,” she said.
“I also feel like I needed that validation of my writing ability because I’m not a native speaker of English. I’ve dared to write in a way I hadn’t before: striving for more depth, more poetic expression, and I really wasn’t sure how well I was doing. The validation this award has given me will carry me through many moments of self-doubt that will inevitably come as I’m working on finishing the manuscript.”
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