Five finalists have been announced for the new Sami Rohr prize for Jewish literature. According to the official announcement (a PDF), the whopping $100,000 award is the largest ever for a Jewish literary prize.
The prize will be given annually to an “emerging writer” and this year’s nomination list has a distinctly international flavor:
-Naomi Alderman of England for Disobedience (Touchstone)
– Amir Gutfreund of Israel for Our Holocaust (Toby Press)
– Yael Hedaya of Israel for Accidents (Metropolitan Books)
– Michael Lavigne of San Francisco, CA, for Not Me (Random House)
– Tamar Yellin of England for The Genizah at the House of Shepher (Toby Press)
I’ve only heard of two of these book: Lavigne’s and Alderman’s, and only the latter has gotten much press, as far as I’ve seen (though I have come across Yellin’s story collection Kafka in Bronteland).
