Description

In this moving and engaging book by one of France’s few female rabbis and leader of the country’s Liberal Jewish Movement, Delphine Horvilleur recounts eleven stories of loss, mourning, and consolation, collected during years spent caring for the dying and their loved ones.

From Charlie Hebdo columnist Elsa Cayat, to Simone Veil and Marceline Loridan, “the girls of Birkenau”; from Yitzhak Rabin, to Myriam, a New Yorker obsessed with planning her own funeral, to the author friend’s Ariane and her struggle with terminal illness, Horvilleur writes about death with intelligence, humour, and compassion. Rejecting the contemporary tendency to banish death from our thoughts, she encourages us to embrace its presence as a fundamental part of life.

Drawing from the Jewish tradition, Living with Our Dead is a profoundly humanist, universal, and hopeful book that celebrates life, love, memory and the power of storytelling to inspire and sustain us.

Publisher Review

“Delightful and moving… Delphine Horvilleur finds the right words to describe our time and its ghosts.” * ELLE (France) * “A radiant book that, without sentimentality, invites us to celebrate life.” * Le Monde * “A hymn to the healing power of storytelling and the written word.” * Le Figaro * “Thought provoking.” * Kirkus Reviews *