Amzaleg
Emmanuel Amzaleg is a man the likes of whom has never before been encountered in Hebrew literature. A Tel Aviv intellectual of Mizrachi origins, he is steeped in Western culture, a pacifist and a dandy.The breakup of his marriage, at age 50, causes an upheaval in his lifeand leads him to begin tracing his lineage. This journey into his family’sroots arouses metaphysical, ethical and cultural musings. Throughout hissearch, he finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of personal attachments: hisrelations with his parents, from whom he has drifted apart culturally; withhis ex-wife; with his children, who are growing up in a complex reality; witha number of impressive women; with the academic elite; and with Israel,which has become a foreign land to him. All of these relationships are nowbeing tested, and from them emerges the figure of a complex man livingbetween different worlds, engaged in existential contemplation. Amzaleg,a novel about the circumstances of an educated person in contemporaryIsrael, opens up universal themes.
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“A touching figure, one that does not fall into any defined ideological category.”
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“The poetics, the story and the cultural depth all serve one another perfectly. A lucid novel, wise, thought-provoking and enjoyable, one that in a certain sense is a wakeup call for neoliberals.”