‘Both a profound study of the inner lives of two teenagers and a novel that has pace, bite and a well-sustained plot … Beautifully drawn … An intensely gripping novel’ Financial Times
The Zigzag Kid
‘Astonishing … An unforgettable, burningly intelligent page-turner’ Mail on Sunday
A hijacked train whisks an imaginative young boy on an unforgettable adventure, during which he makes discoveries about his own family’s past and his richly textured fantasy world includes his irresistibly rum kidnapper and a wild woman who rescued his Israeli policeman father from a vat of chocolate.
‘Energetic characterization and abundantly imaginative plotting combine in an engaging and charming tale’ Guardian
Lovers and Strangers
‘Absorbing and moving’ Daily Mail
These two novellas concern love. In ‘Frenzy’, Shaul is convinced that his wife is having an affair. He feverishly imagines her, in every painful detail, with her lover. Esther has never seen the human side of her aloof brother-in-law, but during a night-time journey Shaul unburdens himself, recreating an affair he has never witnessed. Is he mad? Or has he divined the truth? In ‘Her Body Knows', Rotem has spent most of her life being angry with her mother, Nilli. Now Nilli is dying and Rotem, who has finally found happiness in London, must return to say goodbye. She arrives with a story about Nilli, full of accusations, empathy, love and forgiveness.
‘Shaul’s fantasy and Rotem’s spin on a true story are two sides of one coin: Grossman’s passion for the redeeming, unpeeling power of fiction, and his art in creating fiction with such power’ Independent
Writing in the Dark
Throughout his career, David Grossman has been a voice for peace and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian divide. In this groundbreaking collection of essays on literature and politics, he addresses the conscience of present-day Israel, a country that has lost faith in its leaders and its ideals. Writing in the Dark ends with the speech in which Grossman famously attacked Israel's disastrous Lebanon war that tragically took the life of his twenty-one-year-old son, Uri. Moving, brave and clear-sighted, these essays on literature, political ethics and the morality of the imagination are a cri de coeur from a calm voice of reason at a time of doubt and despair.
‘The bravest and most clear-headed interpreter of the Israeli-Palestinian divide’ Observer
Order your copy:
www.bloomsbury.com/DavidGrossman
Some of these essays and articles originally appeared in al-Ayyam, the Guardian (London), Ha’aretz, Ma’ariv, The New York Times, Newsweek, and Yedioth Ahronoth.
“Seven Days: A Diary” first appeared in Liberation (trans. Jean-Luc Allouche). “Suddenly, Human Contact” first appeared September 16, 1993 in Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The Holocaust Carrier Pigeon” first appeared in Die Zeit. The articles “Arafat Arrives in Gaza”, “No Peace, No Security”, “Beware, Opportunity Ahead”, “The Pope’s Visit to Israel”, “Boy Killed in Gaza”, “Hours Before the Elections”, and “International Intervention, Please” first appeared in La Reppublica. Grateful acknowledgment is made to these publications.
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney
Copyright © 2003 by David Grossman
First published in Great Britain 2003
Translation copyright © 2003 by Haim Watzman
This electronic edition published in 2014 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com
The moral right of the author and translator has been asserted
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN: 978-1-4088-4777-0
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