Memory and Judaism in the creative process of The house in Smyrna: an interview with Tatiana Salem Levy

Abstract

This paper presents a transcription of an interview with writer Tatiana Salem Levy, originally recorded on a Zoom meeting on October 2, 2023. The questions focus on the influence of memory and Judaism on Levy’s creative process, especially while she was writing the novel The house in Smyrna. Besides exploring this subject, Salem Levy describes other aspects of her creative process, such as the way in which she structured the novel’s chapters, her creative influences, and the conflation of real experience and imagination in fiction writing. She also reflects on what Judaism means to her personally and what the relationship between memory, literature and transgenerationality might mean for the Jewish people.