The Babushka Beauty Pageant (Novel), Toronto, CANADA
Three generations of strong, opinionated women from Ukraine wind up in Canada where they experience love, heartbreak, and a beauty pageant for Soviet émigré grandmothers.
“The novel illuminates the humorous and tragic dynamics of familial expectations while also examining the in-betweenness of the immigrant experience and reckoning with what it means to forge one’s own path.”
Julia Zarankin is a Toronto-based Soviet émigré writer. Her memoir, Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder (Douglas & McIntyre, 2020), is a Canadian bestseller and “Black-legged Kittiwake”was a finalist for the CBC Short Story Award. Her work has appeared in Audubon, Sierra Club Magazine, Threepenny Review, The Walrus, CBC Books, Canadian Geographic, Orion Magazine, and The Globe and Mail. She has received fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Monson Arts, Banff Center and holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton and a BA from Brown University.
Visit Julia’s website: www.juliazarankin.com
Find Julia on Instagram: @juliazarankin