Five Selves

Five powerful stories exploring identity and selfhood. With haunting, Kafkaesque prose, Emanuela Barasch-Rubinstein creates a series of profound, internal narratives.

A Bird Flight: After the death of her father the narrator travels to an academic symposium in Chicago; her host seems fixated on her bereavement as he tries to reach understanding of his own recent loss through her experience.
Earrings: The narrator's choice of earrings becomes symbolic of her desire to establish her own identity separate from the clashing ways of her mother, born in Israel, and her grandmother who emigrated from Europe.
The Grammar Teacher: A teacher who is certain of the right and proper way to behave and teach, and who achieves the highest standards from her classes, finds everything she believes in challenged by a new, modern teacher.
Watch Dog: The consequences of an irrational fear of dogs for a young man seeking to make his way in the world.
Aura: A man lies in a hospital bed and experiences an internal world disconnected from his old life.

REVIEWS:
'These stories are brilliant and highly original. They movingly depict the inner lives of the characters, and the impact is as gripping and dramatic as any thriller.'
Miriam Gross, formerly Literary Editor The Sunday Telegraph
'The stories are important in the way they portray the intricate formation of an Israeli identity, and shed new light in the complexity of Israeli life; yet they go beyond this, revealing a profound understanding of wider human — and humanistic — themes and a fresh, significant artistic voice.'
Aharon Appelfeld