The Koffler Centre of the Arts recently announced the winners of the 22nd Annual Helen & Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards. We would like to congratulate all the winners, especiallly Robin McGrath and Kenneth Sherman.

Robin McGrath won the fiction prize for her novel, The Winterhouse, published by Creative Book Publishing. It is a compelling novel about finding oneself and creating one's own community. Visit Creative's website for more information about The Winterhouse.

Kenneth Sherman won the prize for Jewish Thought & Culture for his collection of essays, What the Furies Bring, published by The Porcupine's Quill. In the months following 9/11, while images of the collapsing towers haunted the media, Kenneth Sherman began a course of reading, seeking out authors who believed that literature could address the most extreme circumstances. Sherman contemplates Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, writing under crushing depression; Anne Frank, retaining sanity by diary writing; authors who, though critically ill, persisted in their quest for the right word. The ‘furies’ in Sherman’s title belong to history and what they bring is not only destruction, but the opportunity to transform ourselves. Visit Porcupine's Quill's website for more information about What the Furies Bring.

The awards will be presented at a special ceremony in Toronto on May 27th at 8 pm at the Al Green Theatre in a free event open to the public.