The Retrospective

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Winner, 2012 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger

“The greatest Hebrew novelist.” — Jewish Review of Books

An aging Israeli film director has been invited to the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. When Yair Moses arrives, a painting over his bed triggers a distant memory from one of his early films: a scene that caused a rift with his brilliant but difficult screenwriter. Upon his return to Israel, Moses decides to travel to the south to look for his elusive former partner and propose a new collaboration. But the screenwriter demands a price for it that will have strange and lasting consequences.

A searching and original novel by one of the world’s most esteemed writers, The Retrospective is a meditation on mortality and intimacy, on the limits of memory and the struggle of artistic creation.

“[The Retrospective] moved me deeply.” — Vivian Gornick, The Nation

“[Yehoshua] achieves an autumnal tone as he ruminates on memory’s slippery hold on life and on art.” — The New Yorker