Three women and one century

Genre(s):

• roman-fleuve (3 generations)
• personal testimonial narratives

Keywords:

• History (20th century, anti-Semitism)
• Jewish identity
• Male-female relationships
• Feminism
• Integration

Audience: suitable for all audiences and all ages; readers interested in Jewish culture and history

Right sold abroad: /

Concept

A fictional tale inspired by true stories: three women, three mothers, three eras over the course of the 20th century; three variations on intimacy, femininity, and relationship with God. A fictionalized portrait of the modern Jewish woman.

Universe and references

• Film A secret (Claude Miller)
• Novel The Women of Lazarus (Marina Stepnova)
• World War II and deportation
• Ashkenazi communities (Eastern France and Germanic countries)

Pitch

When her mother passes away, a woman evokes her family’s story: three generations of Jewish women born in three very different eras. Three mothers. Three daughters.

Their story begins in the rural Jewish communities of Alsace in which they lived peacefully with their neighbors. The story continues with the horror of World War II before ending in the present day of our sometimes gray and sometimes bright cities.

The lives of these three women, their love stories, and their mother-daughter relationships are also the stories of their men who were either not present or otherwise occupied, and of conflicts between tradition and modernity… This is the story of three different ways to be a woman and to love, and above all, about the challenge of understanding oneself.

Author

Janine Elkouby is a classics specialist. She has worked on women in Judaism for a long time and is the author of three novels. She regularly contributes to the publication Information Juive, is actively involved in interreligious dialogue, and is the President of the Strasbourg branch of “Amitié judéo-chrétienne” [Judeo-Christian Friendship].

At a glance

• Novel
• Word count: 860,000 characters including spaces
• Available material in English: this presentation (including an overview of the work’s characteristics) and a translated excerpt