FINAL­ISTS FOR ROHR PRIZE IN FIC­TION ANNOUNCED
FIVE EMERG­ING AUTHORS OF PROMISE
IN RUN­NING FOR $100K PRIZE
2011 AWARD CER­E­MO­NY TO BE HELD MAY 31 
IN NEW YORK CITY


CON­TACT: Kath­leen Zre­lak
Gold­berg McDuffie Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
(212)7054222
kcarterzrelak@​goldbergmcduffie.​com

Feb­ru­ary 2011 (New York, NY) – The Jew­ish Book Coun­cil today named five final­ists for the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize in fic­tion for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture, the largest mon­e­tary award of its kind giv­en to writ­ers of excep­tion­al tal­ent and promise in ear­ly career. Estab­lished in 2006, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture awards $100,000 to its top win­ner, with a $25,000 Choice Award giv­en to its first runner-up.

Hailed as a trans­for­ma­tive award for emerg­ing writ­ers, the annu­al Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture hon­ors the con­tri­bu­tion of con­tem­po­rary writ­ers in the explo­ration and trans­mis­sion of Jew­ish val­ues and is intend­ed to encour­age and pro­mote out­stand­ing writ­ing of Jew­ish inter­est in the future. Fic­tion and non-fic­tion books are con­sid­ered in alter­nate years.

Today’s announce­ment caps a year-long process of review­ing books by a select pan­el of judges. On March 15th, the final­ists will meet with the fic­tion judges of the Sami Rohr Prize in New York, and the win­ners will be announced short­ly there­after. The 2011 award cer­e­mo­ny will be held in New York City on May 31.

This year’s final­ists for the fifth annu­al Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture are:

Alli­son Amend – Sta­tions West (Louisiana State Uni­ver­si­ty Press)
Nadia KalmanThe Cos­mopoli­tans (Liv­ingston Press)
Julie OrringerThe Invis­i­ble Bridge (Knopf)
Austin Rat­ner – The Jump Artist (Belle­vue Lit­er­ary Press)
Joseph Ski­bell –A Cur­able Roman­tic (Algo­nquin Books)

Pre­vi­ous win­ners of the Sami Rohr Prize include Sarah Abre­vaya Stein, for her book Plumes: Ostrich Feath­ers, Jews, and a Lost World of Glob­al Com­merce(Yale Uni­ver­si­ty Press) and Ken­neth B. Moss for his book Jew­ish Renais­sance in the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion (Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press) in 2010; Sana Krasikov in 2009 for her sto­ry col­lec­tion One More Year (Spiegel & Grau); Lucette Lagna­do in 2008 for her non­fic­tion work The Man in the White Shark­skin Suit: My Family’s Exo­dus from Old Cairo to the New World (Ecco) and Tamar Yellin in 2007 for her nov­el, The Genizah at the House of Shep­her (Toby Press).

The win­ners, final­ists, judges and advi­so­ry board mem­bers of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture meet bien­ni­al­ly at the Sami Rohr Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Insti­tute, a forum devot­ed to the con­ti­nu­ity of Jew­ish lit­er­a­ture. The Insti­tute, run under the aus­pices of the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil, cre­ates an envi­ron­ment in which estab­lished and emerg­ing writ­ers can meet and exchange ideas and per­spec­tives. With­in a short peri­od of time, the Sami Rohr Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Insti­tute has become an impor­tant meet­ing place for the lead­ing lights of the Amer­i­can Jew­ish lit­er­ary world.

ABOUT SAMI ROHR

After spend­ing his ear­ly years in post WWII Europe, Sami Rohr moved to Bogo­ta, Colom­bia, where he was a lead­ing real estate devel­op­er for over 30 years. He cur­rent­ly lives in Flori­da and con­tin­ues to be very active in var­i­ous busi­ness endeav­ors inter­na­tion­al­ly. His phil­an­thropic com­mit­ment to Jew­ish edu­ca­tion and com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing through­out the world is renowned. This prize is a gift by his fam­i­ly to hon­or his love of Jew­ish writ­ing, and to help encour­age the con­tin­u­a­tion of the mag­nif­i­cent lega­cy of the Peo­ple of the Book.

ABOUT THE JEW­ISH BOOK COUNCIL

The Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is a not-for-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion devot­ed exclu­sive­ly to the pro­mo­tion of Jew­ish-inter­est lit­er­a­ture. Through an ever-grow­ing list of projects and pro­grams, includ­ing the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards, the Jew­ish Book NET­WORK, and the quar­ter­ly pub­li­ca­tion Jew­ish Book World, the Jew­ish Book Coun­cil serves as a cat­a­lyst for the read­ing, writ­ing, and pub­lish­ing of books of Jew­ish interest.

For more infor­ma­tion about The Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture, please vis­it our Awards page.