Ep.30: ELI ZUZOVSKY
Shownotes
Host Elena Lappin speaks with writer and director Eli Zuzovsky about his novel Mazeltov, a queer coming of age story set in Israel against the backdrop of war and collective trauma. The conversation focuses on how conflict, family, religion, and language shape identity, and why Zuzovsky chose to tell a a personal story through an ensemble of voices.In this episode, Zuzovsky shares how the novel grew from his dislike of the lone-voice coming of age tradition into a more expansive, multi-perspective story. He also reads a passage from the book and discusses brokenness, diaspora, and queerness in a culture of masculinity.
MAZELTOV is published by Footnote Press, an imprint of Bonnier Books.
https://elizuzovsky.com
https://footnotepress.com/books/mazeltov/
Key topics
- Eli Zuzovsky introduces Mazeltov as a debut novel set at a bar mitzvah party in Tel Aviv, against the onset of war
- The book’s structure is built around multiple perspectives, including the grandmother Mémé, the protagonist Adam, and the Palestinian poet Khalil.
- Zuzovsky reads from the chapter “The Shiksa,” narrated by Mémé, which captures the book’s mix of humour, fear of war, and emotional vulnerability.
- The novel as an ensemble portrait rather than a single-boy narrative, with each character helping form Adam’s story.
- Why the coming of age genre felt too narrow to Zuzovsky, and how he wanted a more communal, expansive model of selfhood.
- War as background and texture, not just plot, with Zuzovsky describing it as unavoidable in Israeli and Palestinian life.
- Adam’s relationship to diaspora and exile, including the tension between romanticising leaving and the ethical cost of staying.
- Queerness and masculinity in Israel, and how Adam’s discomfort with national expectations mirrors Zuzovsky’s own experience.
- Language as identity and escape, especially the differences between Hebrew, English, Arabic, and French.
- Religion and Kabbalah as inherited cultural material, even for a secular writer, especially through ideas like brokenness and tzimtzum.
Quotes:
“Selfhood is not a one person show. It’s always an ensemble show.”
“What I can do as an artist is to try to interrogate what they do to the human psyche.”
“Brokenness is all around us, so we might as well start seeing the light and the beauty in it.”
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