Book

Kantika : a novel / Elizabeth Graver.

ISBN: 9781250869845
ISBN: 1250869846
Physical Description: 287 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 24 cm.
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt &amp; Company, [2023]

Graver, Elizabeth, 1964- (author.).

Summary:

"A kaleidoscopic portrait of one family's displacement across four countries, Kantika--"song" in Ladino--follows the joys and losses of Rebecca Cohen, feisty daughter of the Sephardic elite of early 20th-century Istanbul. When the Cohens lose their wealth and are forced to move to Barcelona and start anew, Rebecca fashions a life and self from what comes her way--a failed marriage, the need to earn a living, but also passion, pleasure and motherhood. Moving from Spain to Cuba to New York for an arranged second marriage, she faces her greatest challenge--her disabled stepdaughter, Luna, whose feistiness equals her own and whose challenges pit new family against old. Exploring identity, place and exile, Kantika also reveals how the female body--in work, art and love--serves as a site of both suffering and joy. A haunting, inspiring meditation on the tenacity of women, this lush, lyrical novel from Elizabeth Graver celebrates the insistence on seizing beauty and grabbing hold of one's one and only life."