News

2020 Novella Prize Winner:
Rebecca Păpucaru

Rebecca PăpucaruThe Malahat Review congratulates Rebecca Păpucaru, whose story "Yentas" has won the 2020 Novella Prize!

Rebecca Păpucaru’s entry was chosen from 171 submissions by our two final judges: Samantha Jade Macpherson and Naben Ruthnum. She has been awarded $1,750 in prize money, and her novella will be published in the summer 2020 issue #211 of The Malahat Review.

Of "Yentas," the judges said:  
"Yentas" is a nostalgia-free portrait of girlhood lived among the Jewish communities of 1980s Montreal. The novella’s evocation of the cruelties and kindnesses of teenage friendship, territorialism, and enmity is built in prose as funny as it is precise. Rebecca Păpucaru’s treatment of culture, ethnicity, and religion as complex structures informing protagonist Karen’s family and social life achieves impressive depth and nuance. Through Karen’s eyes we are totally immersed in a rich and bubbling teenaged world. Visceral and enchanting, a truly fantastic read!

Rebecca Păpucaru was awarded the 2018 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry for her first book, The Panic Room, which was also a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her short story “Tropical Conversation” was shortlisted for the Penguin Random House Canada Student Award for Fiction. 

Look for an interview with Rebecca in our July Malahat lite e-newsletter.

We would also like to congratulate the 2020 Novella Prize finalists:
Richard Kemick, "Satellite"; Conor Kerr, "The Bake Sale"; Paige Powell, "Richmond Palace, 1603"; Alana Rigby, "Weather the Storm"; Andrea Routley, "This Unlikely Soil"; John Elizabeth Stintzi, "The Sea That Has Become Known"; and  Andrew Tibbetts, "Sex and Power in the Eighth Grade."

The Malahat Review’s Novella Prize runs every other year, alternating with the Long Poem Prize. The deadline for the next Novella Prize is February 1, 2022.