Kantika: A Novel

A dazzling Sephardic multigenerational saga that moves from Istanbul to Barcelona, Havana, and New York, exploring displacement, endurance, and family as home. A kaleidoscopic portrait of one familys displacement across four countries, Kantikasong in Ladinofollows 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 waya 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 challengeher 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 bodyin work, art and loveserves 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 ones one and only life.