Vilna My Vilna: Stories by Abraham Karpinowitz, translated from the Yiddish by Helen Mintz, has been chosen as the winner of the J.I. Segal “2016 Translation Award for a Book on a Jewish Theme.”

The J.I SEGAL LITERARY AWARDS of the Jewish Public Library are made possible by the J.I. Segal Cultural Foundation, founded by the late Dr. Hirsh Rosenfeld and Mrs. Dvora Rosenfeld. They were established in 1968 to honour and perpetuate the memory of the great Yiddish-Canadian poet, J.I. Segal, and to foster Jewish cultural creativity in Canada.

The purpose of the awards, presented every two years, is to encourage and reward creative works on Jewish themes and to recognize contributions in Jewish education, both formal and informal.

J.I. Segal (1896-1954) is acknowledged as one of the most respected Yiddish poets. His work is characterized by its deep lyrical expression and evocation of the dignity of Jewish life in the Eastern European shtetl and in Canada. Segal strove to show that “a people and its culture are inseparable.” His poetry lives on in Yiddish and in translation.