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Mazaltob Blanche Bendahan

Mazaltob By Blanche Bendahan

Mazaltob by Blanche Bendahan

Reviews:
£21,99
Condition - New
8 in stock
New

Mazaltob Summary

Mazaltob: A Novel by Blanche Bendahan

A first-ever English translation of a compelling work by a forerunner of modern Sephardi feminist literature.

Raised in the Juderia or Jewish quarter of Tetouan, Morocco, at the turn of the 20th-century, sixteen-year-old Mazaltob finds herself betrothed to Jose, 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 Juderia and her powerful desire to follow her own voice and find true love. Bendahans 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. Yaelle Azagury and Frances Malino provide the first English translation of this modern coming-of-age tale, awarded a prize by the Academie Francaise in 1930, and analyze the ways in which Mazaltob, with its disconcerting blend of ethnographic details and modernist experimentation, is the first of its genrethat of the feminist Sephardi novel. A historical introduction, a literary analysis, and annotations elucidate historical and cultural terms for readers, supplementing the authors original notes.

Mazaltob Reviews

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; its also slippery in its point of view, meandering between narrators and voices in a way reminiscent of fellow modernist feminist writer Virginia Woolf. * Hey Alma *
Afascinating 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. -- Elizabeth Graver, author of Kantika
English-language readers will rejoice at this translation of Bendahans 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 writerand 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 Memmis The Pillar of Salt: it is what students of French, North African, and Jewish culture have been thirsting for. -- Abrevaya Stein, professor of history and Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Bendahans masterpiecea stunning exploration of Jewishness, feminism, and modernity in Moroccodeserves to be read far and wide. Malinos excellent biographical introduction and Azagurys fascinating literary analysis beautifully frame their translation. A delight and a triumph! -- Jessica M. Marglin, professor of religion, law, and history and Ruth Ziegler Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Southern California
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. -- Deborah Starr, professor of modern Arabic and Hebrew literature and film, Cornell University

About Blanche Bendahan

Blanche Bendahan (18931975) was born in Algeria to a Jewish family of Moroccan descent and moved to France shortly after she was born. She was a writer of poetry as well as fiction. Mazaltob, which won an award from the Academie Francaise, was her first novel. Yaelle Azagury is a writer, literary scholar, and critic. She was a lecturer in French and Francophone studies at Barnard College and a lecturer in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She is a native of Tangier, Morocco. Frances Malino is the Sophia Moses Robison Professor of Jewish Studies and History Emerita at Wellesley College. In 2012 she was named Chevalier dans lOrdre des Palmes Academiques by the French Ministry of Education.

Table of Contents

Preface
by Yaelle 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 Yaelle Azagury
Endnotes
Further Reading

Additional information

NGR9781684582051
9781684582051
1684582059
Mazaltob: A Novel by Blanche Bendahan
Blanche Bendahan
The Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry
New
Paperback
Brandeis University Press
2024-03-12
176
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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