Cultural writing. Translated from the Ladino and introduced by Raphael Rubinstein. A poignant and richly textured prose work, originally written in Judeo-Spanish-the language of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire and of Cohen's own childhood-and later translated by the author himself into French. The book (which appears here both in English and the Ladino original) is "more or less what my mind retains of the five centuries that my ancestors spent in Turkey." A haunting journey into personal and collective memory, it is also a meditation on a dying language and in fact a dying way of life-that of the Sephardic Jews of Salonica, Istanbul, and other points east. Includes a series of ink drawings by the well-known Spanish painter to whom Cohen addresses his letter.

Author City: Paris FRA

Marcel Cohen was born in 1937 in Asnieres and currently lives in Paris. He has traveled and worked a journalist in the Hamalayas, Assam, and the Middle East, Latin America, and the United States. His work translated into English includes WALLS (ANAMNESES) (Black Square Editions/The Brooklyn Rail, 2009), IN SEARCH OF A LOST LADINO (IBIS Editions, 2005), MIRRORS (Green Integer, 1998), and THE PEACOCK EMPEROR MOTH (Burning Deck, 1995). He has written on the work of Antonio Saura as well as other artists, and his volume of interviews with Edmond Jabes, FROM THE DESERT TO THE BOOK, was published by Barrytown/Station Hill Press in 1990. Cohen's work has been translated into Greek, Norwegian, Danish, Hebrew, Spanish, and English.