The Knife Sharpener’s Bell

Winner of the J.I. Segal 2010 Awards, Prize in English Fiction and Poetry on a Jewish Theme

Shortlisted for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Awards, Fiction

Annette Gershon and her family try to escape the economic chaos of the Great Depression in 1930s Winnipeg by returning “home” to the Soviet Union. But there they find themselves on a runaway train of tumultuous events as Stalinist Russia plunges into the horrors of World War II. This story of remarkable breadth and extraordinary prose is the seldom-told tale of those who undertook that odyssey, of loyalty and betrayal, heroism and fear.

AUTHOR

Rhea Tregebov

Rhea Tregebov’s first novel, The Knife Sharpener’s Bell, published by Coteau Books, won the J.I. Segal Award for fiction, was shortlisted for the Kobzar Award, and was listed in the Globe and Mail‘s top 100 books. An award-winning poet and celebrated author of children’s picture books, Tregebov has also edited numerous anthologies.

Born in Saskatoon and raised in Winnipeg, she did postgraduate studies at Cornell and Boston Universities, worked for many years as a freelance writer and editor in Toronto, and from 2004 to 2017 was a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia. Now an Associate Professor Emerita at UBC, Tregebov continues to live and write in Vancouver.

Reviews

“An assured and affecting first novel. The imminence of disaster – sensing it will come, not knowing how – infuses this tale of a Winnipeg family resettling in ancestral Ukraine? The emerging Holocaust lurks like a slumbering monster, determinedly denied until it begins to claim victims.” – Globe and Mail

“Rhea Tregebov offers readers a compassionate and generous glimpse into a little-known aspect of history: Canadian immigrants whose idealism led them back to the country from which they had fled before the Russian revolution. Viewing this era through a unique lens, Tregebov deftly portrays this west-meets-east perspective, while tracing the twists and turns of being Jewish under Stalin.” – Lilian Nattel