Joachim Schnerf

It is well known: every year the family comes together on a holiday and every year the same discussions take place. Even at the Solomon’s family seder. Between the rites, the exodus from Egypt and the search for the hidden matzo, people talk, laugh, provoke and argue. The granddaughter appears in a Palestinian scarf, the daughter gets one of her screaming attacks… Salomon himself makes concentration camp jokes that no one else, except him, the survivor, appreciates.

But this year everything is different: Solomon’s wife Sarah is no longer alive. Her love and silent indulgence always held the family together. How to preserve the memory of Sarah, of happiness, but also of the hard times?

In his second novel, Joachim Schnerf sensitively describes what it means to find family and life in the face of the loss and horror of the past.

Schnerf, born in Strasbourg in 1987, is a lecturer of international literature in Paris.

Language: Französisch / Deutsch

Translation: Karla Jauregui