Khamsa means “five” in arabic. repeated three times as a protective incantation, it represents the space in which my siblings and i grew up, protected from any evil eye. at home, we speak hebrew, english, and french, having moved to france from israel in 2007. but frankly, we grew up in a bubble. a self-created world, playing games and inventing characters.

the youngest one is sara, fifteen years old. before her is jonathan, seventeen, michael, twenty, nina, twenty-two, and myself, twenty-five years old, l’ainée, the oldest. in-between domestic scenes and portraits of friends, my gaze evolves as my siblings grow up. when i was ten, i promised myself to never forget what it feels like to look at the world as a child: everything is new, imagination blends with reality and the unknown is exciting. coming of age narratives are usually recorded by a parent, but here it is the protective older sister, both participant and observer of this children’s world, striving to embrace those in-between moments. - Julia Gat

Published by Actes Sud
English and French

20 x 30 cm
48 pages
2022