Across So Many Seas

Powerful and resonant.

This welcome historical novel traces a Sephardic Jewish family whose members travel from one country to another with first-person narrators from four generations and spanning centuries. . . . 

Behar's sprawling saga, based in part on her own family history, captures the poignancy of being expelled from one's home. . . . 

Behar (Lucky Broken Girl) delivers a moving tale about four generations of a Sephardic Jewish family navigating cultural and societal upheaval from 1492 to 2003. When the Spanish Inquisition forces 12-year-old Benvenida and her family to flee from Toledo, Spain, the religious refugees settle in what is now Istanbul. In 1923, an act of defiance sees Benvenida's descendant, 12-year-old Reina, banished by her father from Turkey to Cuba. Subsequent years follow Reina's daughter Alegra who, in 1961, teaches literacy in the Cuban countryside, until political unrest prompt her to emigrate to Miami. And in 2003, Alegra's Afro-Cuban daughter Paloma unravels her ancestors' history during a trip to Spain. Divided into four parts, this enlightening read depicts one family's determination to embrace and preserve her Jewish identity and offers glimpses into the long history of Jews in Spain. Behar crafts each included era with painstaking period detail and lush language, delivering a stunning portrayal of immigration and Jewish culture and religion that expounds upon the importance of remaining true to oneself, explores themes of prejudice and racism, and exposes the harm that bigotry can inflict on both individuals and society. The author includes English translations alongside songs and words in Ladino; concluding source notes add further historical context. Ages 10-up. Agent: Alyssa Eisner Henkin, Birch Path Literary. (Feb.)

Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.

Readers will practically be able to smell the marzipan in Ruth Behar's beautiful new historical novel as they follow multiple generations of a Sephardic Jewish family starting from the Spanish Inquisition all the way to Miami, Florida. A layered, lyrical, and moving look at what we carry from our ancestors, not just from the important Sephardic Jewish lens, but for anyone inspired to make meaning out of the past. -Veera Hiranandani, author of Night Diary

* Four 12-year-old Sephardic Jewish girls in different time periods leave their homelands but carry their religion, culture, language, music, and heritage with them. . . . Woven through all four girls' stories is the same Ladino song (included with an English translation); as Paloma says, 'I'm connected to those who came before me through the power of the words we speak, the words we write, the words we sing, the words in which we tell our dreams.' Behar's diligent research and personal connection to this history, as described in a moving author's note, shine through this story of generations of girls who use music and language to survive, tell their stories, and connect with past and future. Powerful and resonant. —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

This welcome historical novel traces a Sephardic Jewish family whose members travel from one country to another with first-person narrators from four generations and spanning centuries. . . . This family saga provides glimpses of several moments in world history and gives readers opportunities to spot connections among the generations, sometimes knowing details about the past that the characters can only guess at. . . . An oud and a Ladino song add echoes from one section to another. The author's note provides context and personal connections; back matter also includes source notes with accessible explanations. —The Horn Book

Behar's sprawling saga, based in part on her own family history, captures the poignancy of being expelled from one's home. . . . The return to Spain brings the story full circle and provides readers with a satisfying conclusion. Generous author notes are appended. —Booklist 

With warmth, wisdom and poetry, Ruth Behar charts four girls separated by centuries and exile but linked by a shared past. As full of ache and sorrow as it is of joy and pluck, Across So Many Sea uses one family's vivid journey to shine light on the serial displacements and rich, enduring culture of Sephardic Jews. —Elizabeth Graver, author of Kantika

Paths of milk and honey for this new book. It sings with poetry and history and story all at once. I enjoyed traveling and learning the path of the ancestors. ¡Felicidades! May our Dio guide this book and bring it many blessings. —Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

I've just finished Across So Many Seas and I'm sitting here still wiping tears but also smiling with gratitude at this big-hearted, intricate, loving meditation. What a beautiful book! I loved these four girls, and their tenacity and insistence on freedom, whatever the cost. And the threads of faith and tradition that bind them over 500 years. And the structure of this novel! By the time the stories intersect in Paloma's story, I felt fully part of this indomitable maternal line. —Ana Menéndez, author of The Apartment

A shining gem of a book with an underlying theme of girls wanting to be heard through the ages. —Sonia Manzano, Pura Belpré Honor-winning author of The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano