Rachele Luzzatto is the only daughter of a Jewish family in northern Italy. Curious and intelligent, she is caught between her interest in religions – her own and others – and her father's violent rejection of them all.
A disagreement ensues between them about the part she is given in the school nativity play. At the same time, she discovers that her father is ill; the severity of his illness is only revealed to her very gradually while her teacher, various members of her family and even her rabbi offer her wide-ranging and humane support.
A.B. Yehoshua paints a complex, and humorous, picture of conflicting religious identities and historical memory in this tender character study of a young girl at the threshold of adulthood.
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Translator of six novels by
A.B. Yehoshua, Stuart Schoffman
was also a writer, educator,
historian and screenwriter.
He was a longtime columnist
for The Jerusalem Report, where his
erudition and humour won him
acclaim and a wide readership.
He died in November 2021, having
completed the translation of
‘The Only Daughter’.