The biennial Kobzar Book Award has been awarded to Ghosts in a Photograph: A Chronicle by Myrna Kostash.

The $25,000 prize, sponsored by the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, recognizes outstanding contributions to Canadian literary arts by authors who write on a topic with a connection to the experiences of Ukrainian Canadians. The winning author receives $20,000 and the book’s publisher receives $5,000.

Ghosts in a Photograph, published by NeWest Press, tells of the lives of Kostash’s grandparents, all of whom moved from what is now present-day Ukraine to Alberta at the beginning of the 20th century. The jury noted that the memoir, “uses Kostash’s family immigration story to delve into history in a meaningful way, and shine light on the intergenerational immigrant experience.’

The award was presented on March 21 at a gala at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.

The shortlist, announced in October, included: Five Stalks of Grain by Adrian Lysenko and Ivanka Theodosia Galadza, ill.; The Taste of Hunger by Barbara Joan Scott;  Ukrainian Ritual on the Prairies: Growing a Ukrainian Canadian Identity by Natalie Kononenko; Valley of the Birdtail: An Indian Reserve, a White Town, and the Road to Reconciliation by Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Douglas Sanderson; and Winterkill by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.