Anthology on Ukrainian-Canadian writers' experiences wins $20K Kobzar Literary Award
Jane van Koeverden | CBC | Posted: March 2, 2018 3:38 PM | Last Updated: March 2, 2018
Editors Lisa Grekul and Lindy Ledohowski won the 2018 Kobzar Literary Award for their anthology Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home. The $20,000 prize, awarded every two years, honours the best Canadian book of any genre that "effectively presents a Ukrainian Canadian theme."
The winning anthology features essays from writers like poet Erín Moure and YA author Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, who reflect on how their storytelling is influenced by their Ukrainian heritage.
"Their writings are variously brash, contemplative, funny, sad, formal, informal and highly personal," said the jury, composed of Randy Boyagoda, Charlotte Gray and Maurice Mierau.
"Taken together, they thoughtfully engage with larger questions and answers about Ukrainian-Canadian experience, and produce a composite picture of an important literary community."
University of Toronto Press, publisher of Unbound, will receive $5,000. In addition, each of the finalists will receive $1,500.
The other finalists include:
- No Free Man: Canada, the Great War and the Enemy Alien Experience by Bohdan S. Kordan
- Ukrainian Otherlands: Diaspora, Homeland, and Folk Imagination in the Twentieth Century by Natalia Khanenko-Friesen
- Kapusta by Erín Moure
- Unearthed: Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden by Alexandra Risen