AUSTIN RAT­NER WINS

THE $100,000 2011 SAMI ROHR PRIZE FOR JEW­ISH LITERATURE

FOR DEBUT NOV­EL THE JUMP ARTIST

2011 AWARD CER­E­MO­NY TO BE HELD MAY 31 IN NEW YORK CITY

March 22, 2011 (New York, NY) – The Jew­ish Book Coun­cil today named Austin Rat­ner the win­ner of the $100,000 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture in fic­tion for his debut nov­el The Jump Artist (Belle­vue Lit­er­ary Press ). The Jew­ish Book Coun­cil is also pleased to announce Joseph Ski­bell, author of A Cur­able Roman­tic (Algo­nquin Books), isthe 2011 run­ner-up and recip­i­ent of the $25,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture Choice Award. Estab­lished in 2006, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture is the largest mon­e­tary award of its kind giv­en to writ­ers of excep­tion­al tal­ent and promise in ear­ly career.

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.

The Jump Artist was fea­tured in Pub­lish­ers Week­ly in spring 2009 as one of 10 promis­ing debut nov­els. Based on the true sto­ry of Phillipe Hals­man, a man who Adolf Hitler knew by name, who Sig­mund Freud wrote about in 1930, and who put Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe on the cov­er of Life mag­a­zine, the nov­el has been called a remark­able work…[that] doc­u­ments a tri­umph of the human spir­it over tremen­dous adver­si­ty” (Harper’s Mag­a­zine), and an ele­gant­ly writ­ten trib­ute [that] makes as beau­ti­ful a use of the dark­ness and light of one man’s life as a Hals­man pho­to­graph of a pret­ty young woman” (GQ).

The 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)

By virtue of being named a Rohr Prize final­ist, these writ­ers are wel­comed into the fel­low­ship of a fore­most Jew­ish lit­er­ary com­mu­ni­ty. 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.

For more infor­ma­tion about The Sami Rohr Prize for Jew­ish Lit­er­a­ture, please click here!