Sasha Vasilyuk has won the 2025 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, given annually to “an emerging writer who demonstrates the potential for continued contribution to the world of Jewish literature,” for her debut novel, Your Presence Is Mandatory.
Vasilyuk’s novel, published last April by Bloomsbury, follows a Ukrainian soldier in World War II whose family discovers that his stories about his experiences during the war might not have been true. The book was previously longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.
The other finalists for the award were Benjamin Resnick for Next Stop, Toby Lloyd for Fervor, and Janice Weizman for Our Little Histories. Laurie Muchnick, the fiction editor of Kirkus Reviews, was among the prize’s judges.
Debra Goldberg, the prize director, said in a statement, “Sasha Vasilyuk’s remarkable achievement lies in her ability to weave the personal and historical into a narrative that speaks across generations. The diverse voices of this year’s winner and finalists celebrate the vibrant future of Jewish literature, deepening our engagement with the past while charting new directions for expression.”
Vasilyuk said, “I wrote this novel to honor voices nearly lost to silence and am immensely grateful and humbled that the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature is paying tribute to this complicated history and the people who lived it.”
The Sami Rohr Prize, which comes with a cash award of $100,000, was established in 2007 and named in honor of the real estate developer and philanthropist who died in 2012. The award alternates annually between fiction and nonfiction.
Previous winners include Sana Krasikov for One More Year, Matti Friedman for The Aleppo Codex, and Michael David Lukas for The Last Watchman of Old Cairo.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
