Tsarfati's Obsession

<p>In his last novel the acclaimed Mois Benarroch weaves a profound and labyrinthine tapestry of memory identity and the relentless pull of the past. <em>Tsarfati's Obsession</em> is a genre-defying masterpiece that blurs the lines between memoir fiction and philosophical inquiry.</p><p>At its heart is Salomon Haserfaty a writer and poet who after a lifetime of literary struggle lands a position teaching Spanish at the French School in Jerusalem. This homecoming to a Francophone environment becomes a portal plunging him back into the classrooms of his youth in Morocco and forcing him to confront the ghosts of his upbringing his complex multilingual identity and the de-education inflicted upon his generation.</p><p>As Salomon navigates the chaotic multicultural microcosm of the school his personal history bleeds into his present. His story intertwines with Ottobio a man who confesses his life to the wind and Ottobi a woman haunted by a recurring dream and a tragic accident. Through their parallel narratives blog entries from a conference of Hispano-Moroccan Jews in Spain and raw autobiographical fragments Benarroch constructs a powerful meditation on the languages we speak the stories we are forced to forget and the active often painful act of remembering.</p><p> </p><p><em>Tsarfati's Obsession</em> is more than a novel; it is an Ottobiography-a searing witty and deeply moving exploration of a life caught between Morocco and Israel between Spanish French and Hebrew and between the relentless demands of art and the crushing weight of history. This is Benarroch's culminating work a testament to a lifetime of writing against the wind.</p>