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Mourning for Papá: A Story of a Syrian-Jewish Family in Mexico. By Jacobo Sefamí. ISBN: 978-1-888205-31-2 $26.98 Using the death of the father as a point of departure, the novel is divided into ten chapters, a structure that is particularly effective because the chapters correspond to the ten days that begin on the Jewish New Year and end on the Day of Pardon... Thus the mythic time of a millenarian religion such as Judaism is strategically juxtaposed to the recapturing of a family's memory that is both contemporary and unmistakably Mexican... The dialogues are tinged with Jewish humor -Jorge Schwartz Each character lives simultaneously within three cultures -Jewish, Syrian, and Mexican-in a hybrid narration that produces fascinating mixtures -Lucía Guerra The representation of a state of mind throughout the novel is magnificent, particularly since he dares to portray a personal story as it pertains to both a collective consciousness and to the alienation that is caused by death... The blend of comedy and tragedy is maintained throughout the novel, in the best Jewish tradition, as established by Fernando de Rojas. I certainly enjoy the interweaving of languages and linguistic varieties. It is a pleasure to see such linguistic complexity sustained throughout the entire novel, without ever faltering. -José Kozer Regardless of their origin, the family values, as well as the customs and rituals with which each human group constructs an identity continue to be present and valid. It is this phenomenon that bestows the greatest transcendency to this text. -Ana Portnoy Grumberg
The grandson of Sephardic Jews who immigrated to Mexico City from Turkey and Syria, Professor of Spanish at UC-Irvine, Jacobo Sefamí is Associate Editor of the academic journal Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, and has published several books and articles on Latin American poetry. Kay (Kayla) S. García is Professor of Spanish at Oregon State University, author of Broken Bars: New Perspectives from Mexican Women Writers, and translator of two novels and a collection of short stories by the Mexican author Brianda Domecq. She is the co-translator of Paletitas de Guayaba/On a Train Called Absence (Floricanto Press, 2010). |
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