When Europeans in the Middle Ages spoke of "marranos," they were making a derogatory reference to "crypto-Jews"--those who publicly converted to and performed as Christians, but who remained secretly faithful to Judaic law. Today, asserts Elaine Marks in Marrano as Metaphor, the concept can be used to describe all Jews living in a dominant Christian or Muslim culture, whatever may be their conscious relationship to Judaism.

A sweeping examination of the Jewish presence in French literature from the sixteenth century to the present, Marrano as Metaphor explores the many...