Long-list of 14 drawn up for Jewish book prize

A long-list of 14 books including novels and historical non-fiction has been drawn up from a pick of 70 nominations and will now be considered for the 2017 Jewish Quarterly  Wingate Prize, the winner of which gets £4,000.

This year’s list includes a novel by well-known authors such as Howard Jacobson, a biography of Swedish diplomat and Holocaust hero Raoul Wallenberg, and a critically-acclaimed story of a Palestinian refugee family living in Gaza.

‘The Blue Between Sky and Water’ by Susan Abulhawa, a human rights activist, covers four generations of the same family, and includes a harrowing tale of Jewish soldiers burning a Palestinian village, as the State of Israel was declared.

Chair of judges Professor Bryan Cheyette said: “We debated long and hard over who to include, however, we believe we have a long-list which is diverse and of an enormously high quality, reaching across a variety of genres and countries.”

The winner will be announced at community centre JW3 on 23 February. Past winners include chef Claudia Roden, Israeli icon Amos Oz and Jacobson himself, who has won it twice.