Book about The Queen’s wedding gown wins Canadian Jewish literary award

A book about The Queen’s wedding gown was among the winners of the fifth annual Canadian Jewish Literary Awards this week.

Jennifer Robson’s fiction book ‘The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding’ is about one of the most famous wedding dresses of the 20th century – The Queen’s wedding gown and the embroiderers who made it.

Set in the harsh post-war winter of 1947 and told through the eyes of three women, including Holocaust survivor Miriam Dassin, Robson’s novel is described as a story of rebuilding friendship and family after the devastation of the Shoah.

In the book, Dassin and Ann Hughes form an unlikely friendship at the Mayfair fashion house charged with making the dress for Princess Elizabeth, as told through a grand-daughter who, in Toronto in 2016, discovers that her Nan kept a piece of embroidery from the dress.

Robson is based in Toronto but studied at Oxford, and her book scooped the literary prize together with a host of other offerings, including a biography of Soviet wartime journalist Vasily Grossman, a collection of travel essays from a woman of Yemeni descent, and a history of how Israel’s secret service came into being.