About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherBrandeis University Press

ISBN-101684582059

ISBN-139781684582051

eBay Product ID (ePID)11062930640

Product Key Features

Number of Pages176 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication NameMazaltob : a Novel

SubjectComparative Literature, Modern / 20th Century, Jewish

Publication Year2024

TypeTextbook

AuthorBlanche Bendahan

Subject AreaLiterary Criticism, Fiction

SeriesThe Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.7 in

Item Weight11.1 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

LCCN2023-048011

Reviews Mazaltob is a fascinating portrait of a young Moroccan Sephardi woman as she navigates the ever-shifting ground between tradition and modernity, East and West, self and other, obligation and desire. Stylistically bold, culturally rich, by turns comic and wrenching, this polyphonic novel is both historically important and, in its new translation, a gift for our current times., This is a poignant coming-of-age novel which explores themes of feminism, decolonization, diaspora, orientalism and the struggle between modernity and tradition. The text is rich and lush in its descriptions of North African Jewish life and customs; it's also slippery in its point of view, meandering between narrators and voices in a way reminiscent of fellow modernist feminist writer Virginia Woolf., It is a little gem of a book, not a historical curiosity but something to be read for all the good reasons you read a novel., English-language readers will rejoice at this translation of Bendahan's coming-of-age story, set in northern Morocco at the turn of the century and following the dreams and travails of a Jewish young woman who chafes at the constraints that society places upon her. This marvelous annotated translation restores to us the forgotten words of an award-winning Jewish woman writer--and introduces us to a young, female Jewish protagonist whose sexual and spiritual desires are evocative and timely. With artful, informed introductory words by Azagury and Malino, Mazaltob is a crucial compliment and counterpoint to Albert Memmi's The Pillar of Salt : it is what students of French, North African, and Jewish culture have been thirsting for., Bendahan's masterpiece--a stunning exploration of Jewishness, feminism, and modernity in Morocco--deserves to be read far and wide. Malino's excellent biographical introduction and Azagury's fascinating literary analysis beautifully frame their translation. A delight and a triumph!, Azagury and Malino have translated Bendahan's text beautifully, and their footnotes, introductions, and explanations supply necessary context. . . . A brilliant and ambivalent piece of feminist fiction., The English translation of Mazaltob is the result of a collaboration between scholars Azagury and Malino, who offer a keen historical introduction, annotated text and insightful literary analysis. Their efforts help us to appreciate how unique Mazaltob was for its time and why it is relevant for anyone interested in understanding the emergence of a Jewish feminist sensibility taking shape in this distinct cultural and historical climate., This important translation brings to the fore a novel which has been overlooked within the genre of North African Jewish Francophone novels. , A beautiful, poetic novel, Mazaltob offers rich description of the lives of Jewish women in early twentieth-century Tetouan, while also reflecting upon the early twentieth-century French intellectual milieu of its author, Bendahan. The fluid translation makes the work of this important but long-overlooked Sephardic writer a pleasure to read in English., A fascinating portrait of a young Moroccan Sephardi woman as she navigates the ever-shifting ground between tradition and modernity, East and West, self and other, obligation and desire. Stylistically bold, culturally rich, by turns comic and wrenching, this polyphonic novel is both historically important and, in its new translation, a gift for our current times., During the past few decades, scholars and feminists has been recovering work written by Jewish women during the first half of the twentieth century. The majority of these books are from the Ashkenazic world, which makes the new edition of the novel Mazaltob by Bendahan, translated and edited by Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino, even more welcome since it offers a view of Sephardic culture., Azagury and Malino have done us a tremendous service by making this seminal novel by Bendahan accessible in English translation, thereby helping us to build a canon of Sephardic novelistic creativity by women writers in French., Mazaltob is psychologically astute, highlighting clashes--of traditions and of values--that are incredibly modern. The history of this little-known corner of the Jewish world where 'the Sephardim view themselves as aristocrats' is fascinating and moving. Bendahan was ahead of her time as a feminist yet of the moment as a novelist. She had one foot in twentieth-century European culture and another in the rituals and rhythms of ancient Sephardic Jewry., With this edition, we are able to appreciate fully how unique the novel was for its time, and why it is relevant for anyone interested in understanding how the awakening of a feminist sensibility took shape in this distinct cultural and historical climate.

Dewey Decimal843.912

Table Of ContentPreface by Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino Acknowledgements Introduction by Frances Malino A Note on the Translation Map of the North of Africa and the Mediterranean (1910) Mazaltob by Blanche Bendahan Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Mazaltob and the Rise of the Modern Sephardi Novel by Yaëlle Azagury Endnotes Further Reading

SynopsisA first-ever English translation of a compelling work by a forerunner of modern Sephardi feminist literature. Raised in the Judería or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to José, an uncouth man from her own community who has returned from Argentina to take a wife. Mazaltob, however, is in love with Jean, who is French, half-Jewish, and a free spirit. In this classic of North African Jewish fiction, Blanche Bendahan evokes the two compelling forces tearing Mazaltob apart in her body and soul: her loyalty to the Judería and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahan's nuanced and moving novel is a masterly exploration of the language, religion, and quotidian customs constraining North African Jewish women on the cusp of emancipation and decolonization. Yaëlle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Académie Française in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob , with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genre--that of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the author's original notes.

LC Classification NumberPQ2603.E533M3913