Event Title - The Netanyahus : A Reading and Talk with Joshua Cohen
Wednesday, January 19, 2022 at 19:30
10, rue du G茅n茅ral Camou, 75007 Paris
Please RSVP for in-person attendance (limited) or to obtain the Zoom link聽.
础鲍笔'蝉听Center for Writers and Translators聽is delighted to present a conversation with Joshua Cohen about聽The Netanyahus聽in collaboration with the聽Center for Critical Democracy Studies聽and the . Set at Corbin College in a fictional, sleepy college town in upstate New York over the winter of 1959 to 1960,听The Netanyahus聽follows Ruben Blum, a Jewish historian, as he reviews the job application of an exiled Israeli scholar whose speciality is the Spanish Inquisition. When Benzion Netanyahu, a Polish-born, Israel-based academic better known as Benjamin鈥檚 father, shows up for an interview, Blum plays the reluctant chaperone to guests who proceed to lay waste to his American complacencies. Subtitled聽An Account of A Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family,聽and described as 鈥渢he best and most relevant novel I鈥檝e read in what feels like forever鈥 by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for the聽The New York Times, Cohen鈥檚 new novel mixes fiction with nonfiction, the campus novel with the lecture. The final product is a wildly inventive, genre-bending comedy of blending, identity, and politics that finds Cohen聽at the height of his powers. Joshua Cohen was born in 1980 in Atlantic City. His books include the novels聽Moving Kings,听Book of Numbers,听Witz,听A Heaven of Others, and聽Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto; the short fiction collection聽Four New Messages, and the non-fiction collection聽Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction. Called 鈥榓 major American writer鈥 by the聽New York Times, 鈥榤aybe America鈥檚 greatest living writer鈥 by the聽Washington Post, and 鈥榓n extraordinary prose stylist, surely one of the most prodigious at work in American fiction today鈥 by the聽New Yorker, Cohen was awarded Israel鈥檚 2013 Matanel Prize for Jewish Writers, and in 2017 was named one of Granta鈥檚 Best Young American Novelists. He lives in New York City.