Marriage of the Kaufman girl

"A work written with surgical precision to fill a gap." Deborah Feldman, author of Unortodox London, 2008. Nineteen-year-old Chani Kaufman is just getting ready for her wedding with Baruch Levy, a young man she has met a total of four times so far. Chani stands frozen in her sister-in-law, pleated-folded wedding dress, surrounded by older members of the Haredi community all talking about how lucky she is - Baruch is the son of a wealthy, reputable family. Chani’s joy isn’t cloudless: she would do anything not to do it as a hard-working, multi-child mother like her relatives, and she is tormented by doubts that she will be able to connect with someone she barely knows. Fortunately, the rabbi’s wife, Rivka, helps her navigate the plethora of prescriptions governing the lives of Jewish women - but what advice can someone give who struggles to keep her own marriage together? Eve Harris’s first novel explores the invisible everyday life of London’s ultra-Orthodox and seeks, through five special destinies, the answer to the question of how to reconcile religious traditions with the challenges of the modern world. The marriage of The A Kaufman Girl was one of the biggest surprises on the long list of the 2013 Man Booker Award, and because of the author’s sensitive portrayal and intersecting humor, many see him as the new Jane Austin. Eve Harris was born in 1973 to Israeli-Polish parents in Chiswick, London. He worked as a teacher in his hometown and then in Tel Aviv after moving to Israel in 1999. She returned to London in 2002, where she first taught at a Catholic and later at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish girls ’school. The latter’s experience at work inspired her book The Kaufman Girl’s Marriage. She lives in London with her family, in addition to writing, she also holds creative writing courses for disadvantaged women.