A prolific author of short stories — thirteen collections were published in his lifetime by presses such as Fayard, Gallimard, and Le Dilletante — Cyrille Fleischman creates a fictionalized version of the 1950s Yiddish neighborhood of the Marais in a voice that is humorous and deeply moving. The book from which this story is taken, Réparateur de destin, was one of two works published months before Fleischman’s death in 2010. A lawyer by profession, Fleischman published early stories in journals such as La Nouvelle revue francaise and Tribune juive. His first collection came out in 1987 with Gallimard. He was awarded the Prix d’académie française in 1995 and the Max Cukierman Prize for contributions to Yiddish culture in 2002.