Shortlist announced
Mazal tov to those announced on the shortlist for the The Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject).
Earlier this year, Shalom established the Australian Jewish Book Awards. 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.
This week, Shalom announced the shortlist for The Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject). They are:
- Roz Bellamy – Eggs and bones: Essays on endings and beginnings
- Merav Fima – The Rose of Thirteen Petals and the Pomegranate Tree
- Anna Kharzeeva – Warm Walls: A journey from Moscow to Sydney, to self. A memoir with recipes
- Alex Ryvchin – The Killing Field
- Sarah Sasson – Baghdad Girl
The shortlist was chosen by a panel of three judges – Lee Kofman, Ramon Koval and Jonathan Kaplan, who had exceptionally positive things to say about the five shortlisted authors.
About Bellany, they shared that they “thinks seriously but writes playfully, whimsically” and “asks big questions – especially about what it’s like to be a Jew in today’s world, and their kind of Jew – a queer Jew, a first-generation Jew from a Russian background, a left-wing Jew in the post October 7 world”.
The judges describe Fima’s novel as one that “takes readers on a picturesque journey through Sephardic history, focusing on the migrations of a single family” through which Fima “explores the changing nature of Jewish identity past and present”.
About Kharzeeva’s non-fiction memoir, judges said it is a “timely book that highlights a lesser-known chapter in Jewish history and its reverberations today” and “an important history of the radical evolution of Russian Jewry from the 1917 October Revolution to the present”.
Rychin’s fiction novel is described as “erudite, bold and honest” as well as a “rich and ambitious novel” written by “an astute observer of present-day anxieties and their roots that, particularly for Jewish characters, always go deep into the dark, tough soil of history”.
And as for Sasson’s young adult novel, the judges described it as “a testimony of the life of the daughter of Iraqi Jews”, saying readers are “treated to evocative and moving snippets of Aziza’s life”.
The winner of the Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject) will be announced on December 8.
The Wingate Award for Unpublished Manuscripts (Jewish Subject) is generously supported by Investment Manager Wingate.
“Wingate is a long-standing supporter of Jewish education, arts and culture. This award is an investment in nurturing emerging writers within the community, with the belief that literature has the power to inspire and transform lives. It strongly aligns to our purpose to ‘enlarge and enrich the lives of all with whom we interact’ and celebrates achievement. We are delighted to be supporting this important award,” said Wingate Founder and CEO, Farrel Meltzer.
The prize includes $4,000, a mentorship with Lee Kofman, and manuscript review by Morry Schwartz, owner of Schwartz Publishing. All shortlisted authors will receive a mentoring session with Lee Kofman.
This is the third prize awarded in 2024 as part of the inaugural Shalom Australian Jewish Book Award.
“We were grateful to have received so many submissions from diverse Australian voices and are grateful to all the writers for submitting their manuscripts. This shortlist – and all the entries – are a glimpse into the diversity of Jewish experience, research, thought and culture, and we hope to see many of these manuscripts published in the future” explained Anna Stern, Deputy Director of Programs at Shalom who initiated the project.
The Australian Jewish Book Awards aim to strengthen Jewish life in Australia, cultivate and support the local arts and reading communities, provide a platform for authors to receive further exposure and publicity, and award writers with a monetary prize to further support their literary pursuits.
Mazal Tov also to those who were highly commended for their entries:
- Anna Jacobson – Bubbe’s Unconventional Cooking School
- Julia Levitina – Beyond the Pale
- Carol Millner – A Short History of Toast
- Pamela Rushby – A Zoo in Jerusalem
For more information about the Australian Jewish Book Awards, visit shalom.edu.au
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