Kantika

The National Book Award longlisted Graver (The End of the Point) labels her latest book a work of fiction, but in reality it is a lovingly researched family history, centered primarily on her maternal grandmother Rebecca Levy. The eldest daughter in a family descended from Sephardic Jews forced out of Spain 400 years ago, Rebecca enjoys an idyllic childhood in cosmopolitan Constantinople during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. She’s beautiful, a talented singer, and from a family that’s wealthy and worldly; they speak multiple languages, including Ladino, a form of medieval Spanish. But anti-Jewish sentiment is rising, and her father is awash in gambling debts, so the family emigrates to a small Jewish community in Barcelona. Rebecca, a talented seamstress, negotiates local prejudice to start a successful dress business, but she marries unwisely. Meanwhile, rising fascism is an ominous drumbeat in the background. Can her family escape to America?