Vancouver writer Maria Reva among finalists for $25K award for Ukrainian Canadian literature
The Kobzar Book Award celebrates Ukrainian stories in Canada
Maria Reva, Kassandra Luciuk and Angeline Schellenberg have been shortlisted for the 2022 Kobzar Book Award.
Presented biennially by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation, the Kobzar Book Award celebrates Ukrainian stories in Canada and authors whose works demonstrate a tangible connection to the Ukrainian Canadian community.
Reva is shortlisted for her debut novel Good Citizens Need Not Fear.
Set in a small industrial town of Kirovka, the book features a cast of unforgettable characters and entwined tales throughout the chaotic years before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. At the centre of the narratives is a young woman named Zaya: an orphan turned beauty-pageant crasher who survives extraordinary circumstances. Inspired by her family's own experiences in Ukraine, Reva explores individuality amid turbulent times in history.
Good Citizens Need Not Fear was also shortlisted for the 2020 Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
Reva is a writer from Vancouver who now lives in Texas. She won the 2018 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for emerging writers for The Ermine Coat.
The other two finalists are Luciuk's graphic novel Enemy Alien: A True Story of Life Behind Barbed Wire and Shellenberg's poetry collection Fields of Light and Stone.
The winner will be announced on March 24, 2022 in Winnipeg.
The winning author will receive $20,000, while the publisher of the winning book will receive $5,000.
This year's jury consists of Kerry Clare, Ben Sigurdson and Laisha Rosnau, who won the 2020 Kobzar Book Award for her poetry collection Our Familiar Hunger.
Other past winners include Maurice Mierau, Lisa Grekul and Lindy Ledohowski.
The Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko is a national philanthropic institution dedicated to preserve, promote and develop the Ukrainian Canadian cultural heritage.
