Mazaltob - (Tauber Institute Series for the Study of European Jewry) by Blanche Bendahan (Paperback)

About the Book

"The novel Mazaltob (1930) by Blanche Bendahan is the forerunner of a modern Sephardi feminist literature in French, which in recent decades has earned growing recognition. Yet this model for a vital current of post-colonial literature has disappeared from our cultural memory. Rendering the novel Mazaltob into English aims to repair that loss"--

Book Synopsis

A 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.

Review Quotes

"Those who . . . use this text . . . to learn about Moroccan Jewish life in the early part of the twentieth century will be rewarded. . . . With this new edition, readers and scholars can judge anew its place in the literary canon."
-- "Jewish Journal"

"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." -- "Jewish Renaissance"

"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." -- "Sephardic Horizons"

"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."-- "Jewish Review of Books"

"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."-- "Lilith"

"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."-- "The Reporter"

"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." -- "First Rough Draft of History"

"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." -- "Jewish Book Council"

"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." -- "Hey Alma"

"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

"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." --Elizabeth Graver, author of Kantika

"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!" --Jessica M. Marglin, professor of religion, law, and history and Ruth Ziegler Chair in Jewish Studies, University of Southern California

"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."--Abrevaya Stein, professor of history and Viterbi Family Chair in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

About the Author

Blanche Bendahan (1893-1975) 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 Académie Française, was her first novel. Yaëlle 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 l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Ministry of Education.