The Wanderings of Isaac André Gedalia - Paperback

by Sylvie Weil (Author), Ros Schwartz (Translator)

This lyrical little book imagines the experiences and possible afterlives of a much-loved but lost little soul. Isaac André Gedalia is our narrator: an endearingly wise and witty unborn child whose spirit transcends mortality in its quest to connect with grieving parents, future alternative mothers, and the enduring tragedy of diaspora and Shoah encoded in his name. A courageous and deeply personal testimony of trauma, it is also a hopeful, humorous meditation on the human condition.

-Carol Symes, Professor of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignI have always been intrigued by the idea of the soul's choice of its self prior to its incarnation, as in Plato's myth of Er, and Kant's "intelligible choice of one's self by the pre-temporal soul." This is the subject of Sylvie Weil's narrative: the voyage of a soul and its desire to (re)find a shelter in a womb. I was particularly charmed by the part devoted to the soul's "transporting itself" to Japan, reminiscent of Japanese tales. -Professor Robert Chenavier, Agrégé and Doctor of Philosophy.