I Am Forbidden (Platinum Readers Circle (Center Point)) - Hardcover

Markovits, Anouk

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1611735092 ISBN 13: 9781611735093

Publisher: Center Point, 2012

Synopsis

In 1939 Transylvania, five-year-old Josef witnesses the murder of his family by the Romanian Iron Guard. He's rescued by a Gentile maid and raised as her own son. Five years later, Josef rescues young Mila after her parents are killed while running to meet the Rebbe Zalman Stern. Josef helps Mila reach Zalman, a leader in the Satmar community, and she is raised as a sister to Zalman's daughter, Atara. As the girls mature, Mila's faith intensifies, while Atara discovers a world of books. The rise of communism forces the family to move to Paris, where Zalman tries to raise his children within his strict tradition. Mila marries within the faith, while Atara questions the fundamentalist doctrine. The young women are estranged by their choices until a dangerous secret threatens to banish them from the only community they've ever known. A beautifully crafted, emotionally gripping story of what happens when unwavering love, unyielding law, and centuries of tradition co

About this title

About the Author:

ANOUK MARKOVITS was raised in France. She attended a religious seminary in lieu of high school. After she left home at the age of nineteen to avoid an arranged marriage, she attended Columbia University's School of General Studies and graduated with a Bachelor of Science. She has a Masters degree in architecture from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Romance studies from Cornell. Her first novel, Pur Coton, written in French, was published by Gallimard.

Review:

“Markovits makes her stamp on the literary world with an ambitious, religiously-centered debut. This ambitious, revelatory novel richly rewards your efforts and heralds a promising new writer.”
─Entertainment Weekly

“Anouk Markovits’s I Am Forbidden contrasts the fates of a Hasidic family’s two daughters, one who breaks with tradition to pursue a life of intellectual and emotional freedom, the other who cleaves to convention only to find her childless marriage is leading her to consider a course of action that falls well outside her religious beliefs.”
─Megan O’Grady, Vogue
 
“[A] story of miraculous happenings...Tracing the Stern family from Transylvania to Paris and Brooklyn, [Markovits] focuses on daughter Atara and adopted daughter Mila, closer than close, until Atara wants more than the Satmar world can offer. Markovits plays fair: the believers are not stupid; their harsh world has beauty. We dwellers in the modern world know what “should” happen, but Markovits shows why, for those in the other world, it’s not that simple.”
─Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“A lyrical novel about obedience, rebellion and tragedy by an author who grew up in the Hasidic community she writes about.”
—Huffington Post

About this edition

• Publisher: Center Point
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1611735092
• ISBN 13: 9781611735093
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 303