Background
Gini Alhadeff was born on September 7, 1951, in Alexandria, Egypt, to Carlo Alhadeff and Nora (Pinto) Alhadeff, who fled the country in the atmosphere of anti-Semitism that followed the Suez Canal crisis of 1956.
200 Willoughby Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11205, United States
Alhadeff attended Pratt Institute.
Carlos Brillembourg, Melissa Lazarov, Barbara Jakobson and Gini Alhadeff
Gini Alhadeff and Hampton Fancher
Gini Alhadeff and Bella Hubert
Gini Alhadeff as a speaker
Gini Alhadeff was born on September 7, 1951, in Alexandria, Egypt, to Carlo Alhadeff and Nora (Pinto) Alhadeff, who fled the country in the atmosphere of anti-Semitism that followed the Suez Canal crisis of 1956.
Alhadeff attended a French kindergarten in Khartoum. She learned English in Tokyo and graduated from high school in Florence, Italy. In addition, she studied fine art and photography in Harrow, London, and attended Pratt Institute.
Alhadeff has lived in Japan, Italy, England and the United States, where she has worked as a journalist since the mid-1980s. She worked variously at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and worked for a designer in Milan, Italy. She has been working as a freelance writer since 1985. Additionally, Alhadeff is a founder of a literary magazines Normal and XXIst Century. She has also contributed articles on topics ranging from travel to interior design to various periodicals, such as Travel & Leisure, Architectural Digest, House & Garden, Library Journal, New York Times Magazine, Town & Country Monthly and Vogue.
Alhadeff published her memoir The Sun at Midday: Tales of a Mediterranean Family in 1997. She is the author of a novel Diary of a Djinn, as well. Her book The Sun at Midday presents impressionistic anecdotes and portraits of various family members, including an uncle who was interned in Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, a cousin who was ordained a Catholic priest yet lived extravagantly, and an aunt who established the prominent fashion house Krizia. She relates her discovery of her Jewish roots, kept from her in part due to the Nazi threat of her childhood, but also because of her parents own negative perception of their Jewish roots.
Alhadeff edited and translated the first American anthology of Italian poet Patrizia Cavalli, My Poems Won’t Change the World in 2013. Her translation of Fleur Jaeggy’s collection of stories I Am the Brother of XX was published by New Directions in 2017.
(With Diary of a Djinn, Alhadeff has given us a novel of p...)
2003(Tales of a Mediterranean Family)
1997(Number 2)
1987Having faced persecution as a Jew from an early age, Alhadeff's father converted to Catholicism and raised his children in that religion. He converted because the shame of being Jewish was stronger than any pride of being Jewish.
Quotations: "I know I’m Jewish, but I don’t feel Jewish. If you hang onto a label, if you let your [ethnic origins] dictate how you behave, that blocks your own sense of right and wrong. It encroaches on your potential to become a fully realized person."
Quotes from others about the person
"Alhadeff tackles complex relationships with humor and wisdom; listening to her reminiscences is an entertaining, frequently surprising and moving experience." - Nina Mehta
"[It is] a clever, idiosyncratically organized, entertaining memoir. There are jags of insight, jags of color and shrewd analyses of family members and their various relationships, all beginning and ending in anecdote." - Nina Mehta
"A self-proclaimed exile from her ethnic and religious ancestry, Alhadeff insists on the need to remain free of predetermined labels." - Sue Fishkoff
"The truth of this memoir is that we are prisoners of our past yet contain in ourselves the ability to walk out of the house we were born into, or at least into another room." - Kim Bendheim about Alhadeff's book The Sun at Midday: Tales of a Mediterranean Family
"The Sun at Midday is more than just Alhadeff’s story. It is a universal story of survival. It is a story of family. It is a story of finding identity and peace within yourself. ... It is also the story of things that can never be regained." - Niloufar Motamed about Alhadeff's book The Sun at Midday: Tales of a Mediterranean Family