Emmanuel Kattan was born in Montreal, a son of a Jewish Iraqi immigrant. Kattan earned a Master’s degree in philosophy from the Université de Montréal in 1990 and pursued postgraduate studies at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned a PhD from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1999. Kattan worked in London for more than a dozen years prior to relocating to New York City in 2010. His novels originally were issued in French and to date only two have been translated into English.
Fiction
Love Alone: A Novel
Translated by Sheila Fischman.
Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2011.
Synopsis
Judith and Antoine were lovers for a brief time. Then, suddenly, brutally, it ended. Nine years later, they meet again and attempt to revive their old passion. They dream of rewriting their history and burning the memories that are still troubling their souls. But each remains obsessed with the other’s past and the beautiful dream transforms itself little by little into a prison, a shared bout of craziness into which even the reader finds himself irresistibly drawn. Eventually, the couple’s shared madness and jealousy turns homicidal. Kattan writes evocatively about the human heart, as well as the lethal nature of sexual passion.
Fiction
Paths of Desire: A Mystery Thriller
Translated by Kathryn Gabinet-Kroo.
Toronto: Exile Editions, 2014.
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Sara is a young Canadian student living in Jerusalem. This is the story of a Jewish/Muslim woman’s suspense-filled journey of discovery as she confronts her family’s origins, and the realities of living and loving in a turbulent environment where faith and religion are inextricably mixed with politics and daily life – all too often creating frontiers and barriers in the souls of the people.
Suddenly, she goes missing. Her frantic father joins her friends, professors, and the police officer charged with the investigation in an agonizing waiting game that builds in suspense as a secret life, ambiguous motives and suspicious alibis come to light.
Links
Publisher Exile Editions
Biographical Profile from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation where he was a mentor in 2021