Dana Shem-Ur studied phi­los­o­phy at the École Nor­male Supérieure. Ph.D. can­di­date in his­to­ry at Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty, she trans­lates from French, Ital­ian, Chi­nese into Hebrew and published Where I am (New Vessel Press, 2023). and Roaming Scent (Yediot Sfarim, 2026).

Introduction: “A young Israeli woman travels to Paris to study sociology. In the process, she investigates herself—her desires, her longings. A relationship that develops with an older, married lecturer becomes a grammar of absence. The novel’s turbulent opening—a hotel room in Stockholm, a single bed—points to its true subject: not the act itself but the consciousness of the act; not possession but the twilight zone in which it exists in imagination, in memory.

Phantom Scent offers rare prose in its clarity and sensual intelligence. It is a philosophical novel that breathes—or a sensual novel that thinks. It interprets eros without dimming its radiance, tracing the lingering fragrance it leaves behind. By the end, the reader is left with a sensation that does not leave the body—something few books manage to achieve.”—Benjamin Balint

Dana Shem-Ur is a writer and translator from Chinese and French. Her first book, Where I Am, was published by Pardes and by the American publisher New Vessel Press.

“Phantom Scent is a playful, intelligent, and sexy book that performs wonders with language. At the same time, it is a heartrending book about the frustrating, agonizing gaps between infatuation and love, and between physical pleasure—sublime as it may be—and emotional fulfillment.” —Yigal Schwartz 

Your novel foregrounds consciousness over action. Is fiction, for you, a form of phenomenological inquiry?

DSU: You could say that, or perhaps say that it is an inquiry into the human soul. But there, too, there is action. I........

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