Short list for $25,000 Kozbar Literary Award announced

TORONTO – Five finalists have been named to the short list for the biennial $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award.

Four non-fiction titles and a work of poetry are among the contenders for the prize.

The finalists are:

— Lisa Grekul and Lindy Ledohowski, editors for “Unbound: Ukrainian Canadians Writing Home” (University of Toronto Press)

— Bohdan S. Kordan for “No Free Man: Canada, the Great War and the Enemy Alien Experience,” (McGill-Queen’s University Press)

— Natalia Khanenko-Friesen for “Ukrainian Otherlands: Diaspora, Homeland, and Folk Imagination in the Twentieth Century,” (University of Wisconsin Press)

— Erin Moure for “Kapusta,” (House of Anansi Press)

— Alexandra Risen for “Unearthed: Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden (A Memoir),” (Viking)

Launched in 2003, the award recognizes contributions to Canadian literary arts through a Ukrainian Canadian theme.

The prize is presented by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko.

The jury includes writer, critic and scholar Randy Boyagoda, literary non-fiction writer and political and cultural commentator Charlotte Gray, and poet and non-fiction writer Maurice Mierau, winner of the 2016 Kobzar Literary Award.

Each of the finalists will read from their nominated works at a special event during the Toronto International Festival of Authors on Oct. 21.

The winner will be announced at a gala presentation in Toronto next March.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version misspelled the name of Maurice Mierau.