The Retrospective

An ageing film director must face his past in the acclaimed Israeli author's prize-winning novel—"a compelling meditation on art, memory, love [and] guilt" (Independent, UK).

Yair Moses, an aging Israeli film director, has been invited to the Spanish pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. Accompanied by Ruth, his leading actress and longtime muse, Moses discovers a painting in their hotel room that triggers a distant memory from one of his early films: a scene that caused a rift with his brilliant but difficult screenwriter—who, as it happens, was once Ruth's lover.


Upon their return to Israel, Moses decides to travel to the south to look for his elusive former partner and propose a new collaboration. But the screenwriter demands a price that will have strange and lasting consequences. A searching and original novel by one of the world's most esteemed writers, The Retrospective is a meditation on mortality and intimacy, on the limits of memory and the struggle of artistic creation.

Winner, 2012 Prix Médicis étranger
Winner, 2012 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice