Francesca Segal’s ‘The Innocents’ wins $100,000 award

Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature aims to ‘encourage and promote outstanding writing of Jewish interest’

NEW YORK (JTA) — Francesca Segal’s debut novel, “The Innocents,” won the $100,000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in fiction.

The novel, which the UK Guardian described as “part ambiguous morality tale, part guidebook on north London Jewish community culture,” already had won the 2012 Costa First Novel Award and the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for fiction.

A runner-up award of $25,000, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Award, went to Ben Lerner for “Leaving the Atocha Station.”

The prizes, which were announced by the Jewish Book Council, will be awarded on Thursday at the Center for Jewish History in New York at an event emceed by the Jewish writer Rabbi Joseph Telushkin.

The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature was established in 2006 to “encourage and promote outstanding writing of Jewish interest,” according to a statement released by the Jewish Book Council.

Other finalists for the sixth annual prize were Shani Boianjiu for “The People of Forever Are Not Afraid”; Stuart Nadler for “The Book of Life“; and Asaf Schurr for “Motti.”