Wewill meet again on Tuesday, July 23rd, at 7:30 pm, via Zoom, todiscuss the novel Kantika, by Elizabeth Graver. It is 282 pages of story,and was published in April, 2023. There are twenty-five copiesat the Oakland Library, five copies at the Berkeley Library, and even moreavailable through Link+: https://csul.iii.com/search?/XKantika+&SORT=DZ/XKantika+&SORT=DZ&extended=0&SUBKEY=Kantika+/1,6,6,B/detlframeset&FF=XKantika+&4,4,. Kantika is available in print, electronic, and audioversions.
Kantika by ElizabethGraver
A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves fromIstanbul 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” inLadino—follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of theSephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose theirwealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions alife and self from what comes her way—a failed marriage, the need to earn aliving, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba toNew York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge—herdisabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whosechallenges pit new family against old.
Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika alsoreveals how the female body—in work, art and love—serves as a site of bothsuffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women,this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence onseizing beauty and grabbing hold of one’s one and only life.
