Francesca Segal’s debut novel, “The Innocents,” won the $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in fiction.
The novel, which the U.K. Guardian described as “part ambiguous morality tale, part guidebook on north London Jewish community culture,” already had won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award and the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for fiction.
A runner-up award of $25,000, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Award, went to Ben Lerner for “Leaving the Atocha Station.”
The prizes, announced by the Jewish Book Council, were to be awarded May 30 at the Center for Jewish History in New York at an event emceed by Joseph Telushkin, a writer and rabbi.
The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature was established in 2006 to “encourage and promote outstanding writing of Jewish interest,” according to a Jewish Book Council statement.
Other finalists for the sixth annual prize were Shani Boianjiu for “The People of Forever Are Not Afraid,” Stuart Nadler for “The Book of Life,” and Asaf Schurr for “Motti.” — jta