Ghosts in a Photograph by Myrna Kostash

In Ghosts in a Photograph, nonfiction writer Myrna Kostash delves into the lives of her grandparents, all of whom moved from Galicia, now present-day Ukraine, to Alberta at the turn of the twentieth century. Discovering a packet of family mementos, Kostash begins questioning what she knows about her extended families' pasts and whose narrative is allowed to prevail in Canada.

This memoir, however, is not just a personal story, but a public one of immigration, partisan allegiance, and the stark differences in how two sets of families survive in a new country: one as homesteaders, the other as working-class Edmontonians. Working within the gaps in history—including the unsolved murder in Ukraine of her great uncle—Kostash uses her remarkable acumen as writer and researcher to interrogate the idea of straightforward and singular-voiced pasts and the stories we tell ourselves about where we come from.

Myrna Kostash is an Edmonton-based writer of several nonfiction books, including All of Baba's Children and Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium. Ghosts in a Photograph won the 2024 Kobzar Book Award.