Gad Elmaleh’s Sister Unveils Family’s Hidden Past in Debut Novel

In this first novel published by Editions Robert Laffont, Judith Elmaleh recounts the story of her family, specifically that of her grandmother, who was forcibly married at the age of 14 to her uncle. A family secret discovered "quite late" that she reveals: "They put a beautiful dress on her, she was taken to a party. She loved this party. And at the end of this party, she said to her mother: ’I would like to go home, I’m a little tired’. And she told her: ’No, you won’t be able to go home and you’ll stay’. She stayed there all her life. She had gotten married, she hadn’t understood that this party around her, it was her wedding," she confides.

Still a teenager at the time in Morocco, the young bride (the grandmother) and "second wife" of the man becomes pregnant a few months later without understanding what was happening to her. Judith Elmaleh presented this book to the RTL listeners in the presence of her brother, Gad, who was by her side and followed her attentively. "We lived in a crazy family anyway. All my childhood, we said that my grandfather’s first wife was my great-grandmother," reacted the 51-year-old comedian.

For the actor and confirmed bachelor, his grandmother was "a feminist before her time". He confides that she "put him in his place" when he told her of his wish to marry a woman who, like her, "will make meatballs, couscous". "Are you looking for a woman or an employee, you?" she asked him. As for Judith, she remembers one of the wise grandmother’s advice: "When I got married, she told me: ’If you’re not happy, you leave’. That sentence stayed in my head. Not that I wanted to obey her, but she gave me the permission to do so, that freedom that she didn’t have".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHgmg4-TtXU