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With A Prayer for Nacha Frédéric Brun brings to a close a family trilogy which began in 2007 with Perla, followed in 2008 by Le Roman de Jean.
In this new book he explores memory for its most intimate and evasive details, by looking at his aunt Nacha who suffers from Alzheimer’s. While her illness creates more and more gaps, fragmenting her existence to the point of emptiness, and dehumanising her, he asks what a person becomes when they have no memories. How do you trace what they have done? Or restore their dignity? What prayer can you say for them?
He then realises that he has not been handed down any family memories by his mother, Perla, nor his aunt, daughters of Polish Jews.
This throws up many questions: without gestures, stories, rituals and liturgies, can “Jewish memory” be transmitted through our genes? What faith should you adopt if you are born to a Christian father and a Jewish mother? Can you find another faith thanks to philosophers such as Maimonide and Spinoza?
Using photographs; official records; birth, marriage and death certificates; and administrative documents, he begins and investigation into his own origins which takes him to the street’s of the Marais quarter of Paris, the Jewish Memorial, Ribérac, Lyon and all the way to the Polish cemetery in Olkusz. The family tree gradually takes shape. A whole vanished community reappears. During the course of his journey he writes a yizkor book, a book of prayer in memory of Nacha, but also for all the members of his family whom he never knew. He lights a candle for life.

Frédéric Brun was born in Paris in 1960. His previous books are Perla, which won the 2007 Goncourt Grant for a first novel, and Le Roman de Jean, 2008.