An Egyptian Novel

by Orly Castel-Bloom, Todd Hasak-Lowy (Translator)

Overview

The protagonist has Egyptian roots going back many generations: on her father’s side, to the expulsion of the Jews of Spain in 1492, when seven brothers of the Kastil family (from Castilla) landed on the Gaza coast after many trials and tribulations. Her mother’s side goes back even further, to the only family that Jewish history has ignored: the ones who said “No” to Moses and stayed in Egypt. After migrating to Israel in the 1950s and settling on a kibbutz—from which they were soon expelled for Stalinism—this storied clan moved to Tel Aviv. In this unconventional family saga, Orly Castel-Bloom blends fact with fiction, history with legend, reimagining the lives of her forebears in unforgettable prose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781943150229
Publisher:	Dalkey Archive Press
Publication date:	07/21/2017
Series:	Hebrew Literature Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	141
Sales rank:	781,427
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Orly Castel-Bloom is a leading voice in Hebrew literature today. Her postmodern classic Dolly City has been included in UNESCO’s Collection of Representative Works, and was nominated in 2007 as one of the ten most important books since the creation of the state of Israel. An Egyptian Novel won the Sapir Prize in 2015.

Todd Hasak-Lowy is a translator and fiction writer. He is the author of, among other works, a short story collection entitled The Task of This Translator and the novel Captives. He lives in Evanston, IL, and teaches creative writing and literature at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Editorial Reviews

"Orly Castel-Bloom is a leading voice in Hebrew literature today."

White Review

"Castel-Bloom is one of Israel’s most original and outrageous writers. She pushes her themes to the limits, often to the cutting edge of madness."

Jerusalem Report

Dolly City is an irreverent and witty satire."

Times Literary Supplement

2017-05-02
A family saga ranges from contemporary Israel to Egypt to Inquisition-era Spain.Vivienne leaves her job at the bank early to make it to her wedding on time. "I don't understand," says her supervisor, "why didn't you take the day off?" "No need," she says. Her husband, Charlie, is one of five Egypt-born brothers. Vita, one of those brothers, "was already married to Adele, who didn't like the yellow part of the hard-boiled egg, and told everyone in the Egyptian garin—their cohort on the kibbutz—that she's half-Ashkenazi." Vivienne doesn't understand the connection between those two details; all she knows is that, "in the dining hall Adele would always mention these facts together." Castel-Bloom's (Dolly City, 2010, etc.) latest novel is full of details like these: banal yet charming, mundane to the point of absurdity. Vivienne and Charlie will have two daughters, referred to only as the Older Daughter and Younger Daughter, while Adele and Vita will have one, the Only Daughter. These daughters eventually have daughters of their own. Castel-Bloom traces their lineage—based on her own—in chapters that switch back and forth in time, ranging as far back as 1492, when one small segment of the Kastil family converts to Christianity in the midst of the Spanish Inquisition. Castel-Bloom has a wonderful sense of the absurd; her saga is reminiscent of both Kafka and García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. But her novel ultimately fails to satisfy. In many ways, the work reads more like a collection of linked stories than like a unified novel: characters and situations might be introduced in one chapter only to be dropped in the next. It might be that the balance has been tipped too far toward the banal, with chapters like "The Counter Girl Gets Leverage"—in which Vivienne's Older Daughter, now middle-aged, becomes interested in the fate of a young convenience store worker—simply going on too long. On the other hand, you'll want to hear more about that Inquisition. A modern-day epic seesaws uncomfortably between absurdity and banality.

Kirkus Reviews