‘What They Saved’ wins first Jewish Journal Book Prize

Since 2009, when I was first given the opportunity to serve as book editor and chief reviewer for The Jewish Journal, we have been able to significantly increase The Journal’s coverage of the literary world, including biweekly reviews in the newspaper and weekly reviews on jewishjournal.com. We also have created a book blog, 12:12, and we publish additional reviews by a group of esteemed authors and reviewers.

This year, in recognition of the strength and range of our book coverage, we have established an annual prize, dubbed The Jewish Journal Book Prize, in recognition of a book of exceptional interest, achievement and significance. The award will be presented each January to a book published during the previous calendar year, and it carries a $1,000 honorarium. 

The Jewish Journal Book Prize for 2012 recognizes Nancy K. Miller’s unique and compelling family memoir, “What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past.” The book was published in September 2011 by the University of Nebraska Press and reviewed in The Jewish Journal on Oct. 4, 2011.

Miller is a Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has authored and edited more than a dozen books, including works of feminist literary theory, such as “The Heroine’s Text” and “The Poetics of Gender.” Recently, she has turned her focus to autobiography and memoir as tools of self-discovery, writing “But Enough About Me: Why We Read Other People’s Lives” and “Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Parent’s Death.”