Wednesday Book: Mother, You Were My Nearest and Dearest ; A Life by Gabriel Josipovici (London Magazine Editions, Pounds 15)

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GABRIEL JOSIPOVICI lived with his mother Sacha Rabinovitch until her recent death, and this haunting account tries to maintain the link. "I have no rituals," he tells us, "so my writing will have to be my ritual, my way of spending every day in her presence, but at work."

Sacha was born in 1910 into a rich Egyptian Jewish family with origins in Russia and Italy. She had a sort of "Edwardian" childhood, brought up by an English nanny who knew all about the differences between piebalds, skewbalds and dappled greys, quoted Dr Johnson and never even let her brush her own hair.

When their parents died, Sacha and her sister Chickie were taken in by a grandmother who …