Judith Roumani has once again shown her skills as a perceptive researcher and reader in this fascinating book focusing on Sephardi-Mizrahi francophone texts. She contextualizes the work not only of internationally known figures like Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida and Albert Memmi, but also less familiar writers who merit recognition, such as Albert Bensoussan, Annie Fitoussi, Claude Kayat, and Nine Moati. The themes she elucidates will be appreciated by scholars and aficionados of the broad field of Sephardic Studies as well as diasporic and postcolonial studies.
— Sandra M. Cypess, Professor Emerita, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, College Park, University of Maryland
Judith Roumani writes so elegantly and investigates her materials so thoroughly that her work comes out in mint condition. I am delighted and honored to endorse this book on Sephardic fiction presented within a broad cultural and multilingual context. This study is particularly valuable in that it brings the previously little-known field of modern Sephardic fiction in French to an English-speaking readership.
— Yael Halevi-Wise, McGill University
What is particular in Roumani's approach is, first, her premise of a shared 'Sephardic' identity over a wide geographical area, common not only to the Jews of the Old Ottoman Empire but also to the Jews of North Africa and the Muslim Near East, and second, that the saving factor for Sephardic authors has been to abandon the original languages of their cultural matrix (Ladino, Arabic) in favor of a totally external Western language, French. Exposure to French language and culture in the 19th century provided Sephardic writers and intellectuals with a very welcome gateway into the modern world and a literary culture of great prestige. Roumani's study will thus provide substantive weight to the notion that there is a solid body of literature that can be called 'francophone Sephardic.'
— Ralph Tarica z"l, University of Maryland
Migration, diaspora and nostalgic reflection on the vanished communal existence are themes of paramount importance in any approach to Jewish literature. Judith Roumani traverses them all to trace the modern history of Sephardic Jews. Rich and impressive in its comparatist scope and the depth of its analysis, this work is a wonderful addition to modern Sephardi and francophone studies and will be essential reading for a wide range of scholars engaged in these fields.
— K.E. Bättig von Wittelsbach, Cornell University