Graphic Novels

The preeminent work by one of France' s most celebrated young comics artists, "The Rabbi' s Cat" tells the wholly unique story of a rabbi, his daughter, and their talking cat- a philosopher brimming with scathing humor and surprising tenderness. In Algeria in the 1930s, a cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, eats the family parrot and gains the ability to speak. To his master' s consternation, the cat immediately begins to tell lies (the first being that he didn' t eat the parrot). The rabbi vows to educate him in the ways of the Torah, while the cat insists on studying the kabbalah and having a Bar Mitzvah. They consult the rabbi' s rabbi, who maintains that a cat can' t be Jewish- but the cat, as always, knows better. Zlabya falls in love with a dashing young rabbi from Paris, and soon master and cat, having overcome their shared self-pity and jealousy, are accompanying the newlyweds to France to meet Zlabya' s cosmopolitan in-laws. Full of drama and adventure, their trip invites countless opportunities for the rabbi and his cat to grapple with all the important- and trivial- details of life. Rich with the colors, textures, and flavors of Algeria' s Jewish community, "The Rabbi' s Cat" brings a lost world vibrantly to life- a time and place where Jews and Arabs coexisted- and peoples it with endearing and thoroughly human characters, and one truly unforgettable cat.