The Tailor of Relizane - Paperback

by Charles Klingman (Translator), Olivia Elkaim (Author)

This is a Jewish fiction novel, translated from the French, about an Algerian Jewish family that live through the period from when Algeria was a French colony, through Algerian independence, and were then required to move to France, a nation that was foreign to them in many ways. The French original received critical success, and is one of a small number of books in English about the Algerian Jewish experience. The novel describes four generations of an Algerian Jewish family, from those who were raised in and only knew colonial French Algeria, to those who were raised in and only knew France. The fears, struggles, and divided allegiances within a family that were sparked by the Algerian war for independence are movingly described, as well as how families come together after undergoing the trauma of a forced exile from their native Algeria to life in European France/