Overview

A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home. A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family's displacement across four countries, Kantika--""song"" in Ladino--follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way--a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge--her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old. Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body--in work, art and love--serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one's one and only life.

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9781250869845

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Reviews

"""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 ""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 ""'The past feels heavy, the present thin, ' Rebecca muses after Lika's departure for the U.S. The phrase is a fitting description for Graver's novel, where the weight of the past and the ephemeral nature of the present tangle together to create a bewitching whole."" --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams"

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. Oh, and did I mention that it brings a neglected corner of Jewish history to life? Marvelous! --Gish Jen, author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon

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. Oh, and did I mention that it brings a neglected corner of Jewish history to life? Marvelous! --Gish Jen, author of Thank You, Mr. Nixon From the first page, I was swept up and carried along on the migrations of an unforgettable family. Kantika is a gripping and gorgeously told story of twentieth-century Sephardic exile and reinvention and the longing for homes, both old and new. --Tova Mirvis, author of The Book of Separation

"""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 ""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 ""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 ""'The past feels heavy, the present thin, ' Rebecca muses after Lika's departure for the U.S. The phrase is a fitting description for Graver's novel, where the weight of the past and the ephemeral nature of the present tangle together to create a bewitching whole."" --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams"

Author Information

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

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