House of Windows
Portraits From a Jerusalem Neighborhood
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- 4,49 €
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- 4,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
A brilliant and moving evocation of the rhythms of life (and the darker shadows below it) in a working-class quarter of the world’s most fascinating and divided city.
In the tradition of the literature of place perfected by such expatriate writers as M. F. K. Fisher and Isak Dinesen, Adina Hoffman’s House of Windows compellingly evokes Jerusalem through the prism of the neighborhood where she has lived for eight years since moving from the United States. In a series of interlocking sketches and intimate portraits of the inhabitants of Musrara, a neighborhood on the border of the western (Jewish) and eastern (Arab) sides of the city–a Sephardic grocer, an aging civil servant, a Palestinian gardener, a nosy mother of ten–Hoffman constructs an intimate view of Jerusalem life that will be a revelation to American readers bombarded with politics and headlines. By focusing on the day-to-day pace of existence in this close-knit community, she provides a rich, precise, and refreshingly honest portrait of a city often reduced to cliche–and takes in the larger question of identity and exile that haunts Jews and Palestinians alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The author and her husband, Peter, moved to Jerusalem from the United States a decade ago, soon after she completed college, in an attempt to "test the bonds and limits of our American home." But unlike many of her contemporaries who write about themselves, Hoffman refreshingly ignores her inner world in favor of the geography and personalities in one neighborhood in the ancient and much fought over city of Jerusalem. It's her experiences with her neighbors--and their fascinating histories--that distinguish this expatriate's work. Some of those experiences could occur in any city, as when a neighbor who is still a virtual stranger thrusts all of her valuables on them to safeguard when she goes on a short trip. But others could only happen in Jerusalem: discussions with a fish-stand operator who describes his childhood in Morocco and his immigration to the Jewish state; an impromptu, "bittersweet" visit with a Palestinian family on a trip to Jordan; and a neighborhood battle with Orthodox Jews who want to cut down trees to make way for a religious school. At times, as in the latter case, Hoffman's American sensitivities may seem a bit extreme, but to her credit, she doesn't take herself too seriously. The writing in this debut book by the film critic for the Jerusalem Post is as poignant and layered as the subjects she writes about--and by detailing the ways history and culture play out in the day-to-day lives of the residents of one of the world's most contentious cities, she adds nuance and complexity to a much-studied subject.
