Hide and Seek Jewishness in Fiction

In her latest novel, Toutes les vies de Théo (The Many Lives of Theo), Azoulai explores Jewishness directly in the aftermath of October 7, a departure from the subtle “concealment” characterizing her earlier works. Avatars, masks, shifts, transpositions, and analogies have long fueled her narratives, a literary encryption reminiscent of European Jewish literary identity. From Marcel Proust and Georges Perec to Franz Kafka, Felix Salten, Joseph Roth, and Romain Gary, European Jewish novelists have often disguised their Jewishness—whether to protect themselves, aspire to universality, appeal to a broader audience, or simply as a literary game of withholding and revelation.