description The Slaughterman's Daughter Overview
"The Slaughterman's Daughter" is a historical adventure novel written by Israeli author Yaniv Iczkovits, originally published in Hebrew in 2015. The narrative employs a picaresque style to tell the story of a woman in a 19th-century Ukrainian Jewish village who disguises herself as a man to seek justice. It was translated into English in 2020 and subsequently awarded the 2021 Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize for fiction. The book blends historical realism with satire, focusing on themes of gender roles and societal expectations within the Pale of Settlement.
help The Slaughterman's Daughter FAQ
Who is Fanny Keismann in The Slaughterman's Daughter?
Fanny is a Jewish woman from the Pale of Settlement who learned ritual slaughter from her father, a shochet. By the novel's opening she is a wife, mother of five, and skilled with a knife, yet she leaves home to help her sister Mende. [House of Anansi](https://houseofanansi.com/collections/humor/products/the-slaughtermans-daughter)
Why does Fanny go to Minsk?
Mende's husband, Zvi-Meir Speismann, has disappeared, leaving her without a divorce. Fanny travels to Minsk with the nearly mute Zizek Breshov to find him and force him to sign a writ of divorce. [Jewish Book Council](https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/the-slaughtermans-daughter)
When and where is The Slaughterman's Daughter set?
The story opens in 1894 in Motal, a Jewish town in what is now western Belarus, within the Russian Empire's Pale of Settlement. That setting places a family quest alongside restrictions on Jewish movement and the pressure of emigration. [Washington Independent Review of Books](https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/bookreview/the-slaughtermans-daughter)
Who translated The Slaughterman's Daughter into English?
The Hebrew novel was first published in 2015, and the English translation is by Orr Scharf. The English edition appeared in the United Kingdom in 2020 and in the United States from Schocken in 2021, at 528 pages. [Kirkus Reviews](https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/yaniv-iczkovits/the-slaughtermans-daughter/)
explore Explore More
Similar to The Slaughterman's Daughter
compare_arrows Compare: Tipping the Velvet See all arrow_forward
Reviews & Comments
Write a Review
Be the first to review
Share your thoughts with the community and help others make better decisions.
