The Ruined House
Page 45
Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my beloved wife, Carolyn, and most adored daughters, Leah and Talia, whose presence in my life feeds me every day and enabled me to reach this moment.
About the Author
RUBY NAMDAR was born and raised in Jerusalem to a family of Iranian-Jewish heritage. His first book, Haviv (2000), won the Israeli Ministry of Culture’s Award for Best First Publication. The Ruined House won the 2014 Sapir Prize—Israel’s most important literary award. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two daughters, and teaches Jewish literature, focusing on biblical and Talmudic narrative.
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Credits
Cover design by Adalis Martinez
Cover photograph © Grant Faint/Getty Images
Copyright
THE RUINED HOUSE. Copyright © 2017 by Reuven Namdar. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
“I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star,” from Music in the Air. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Music by Jerome Kern. Copyright © 1932 Universal-Polygram International Publishing, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
“The Place Where We Are Right,” from The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, by Yehuda Amichai, edited and translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. Copyright © 2013 by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. Published by the University of California Press.
“Sesame Street Theme,” from the television series Sesame Street. Words by Bruce Hart, Jon Stone, and Joe Raposo. Music by Joe Raposo. Copyright © 1969, 1970 Sesame Street, Inc., and Stage Harbor Publishing, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights for Sesame Street, Inc., controlled and administered by Universal Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Originally published as The Ruined House in Israel in 2013 by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir Publishing House Ltd.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition November 2017 ISBN 978-0-06-246750-8
Print ISBN 978-0-06-246749-2
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* J. L. Goldstein, “Identity as a Case of Group Dynamics”—Interview with Andrew P. Cohen, author of I Spy Me: The Changing Rules of the Game of Identity, American Review 14, Spring 1989, pp. 82–84.
* Andrew P. Cohen, “‘Best Friends’: The Myth of Inter-Species Symbolic Symbiosis,” Contemporary Culture 5, Fall 1990, pp. 48–56. “Symbolically, the human being creates the animal in its image. Anthropomorphism is an integral part of humanity’s relations with the animal kingdom, as with all other non-human aspects of the universe. When we observe and interpret animal behavior, we are actually observing nothing but our own selves. The observed animal is simply one more object onto which we project our own subjectivity. We look at it as though looking in a mirror, inventing what we see to suit our needs while simultaneously reinventing ourselves in the process” (ibid., p. 52).