THE PROPHET - SECOND HAND
From the acclaimed author of The Ash Garden —“an illuminating searchlight on the terra incognita where the personal and the political intersect” (Newsday) —an even more ambitious novel that follows a doctor from the trenches of the Great War into subsequent conflicts whose horrors would soon envelop the world. The historical Norman Bethune—legendary in both his native Canada and China—was a visionary whose dedication touched millions, and as the narrator of this novel he springs to vivid life even as he approaches its end. Rebelling in childhood against his father’s religion, he finds a calling himself, saving lives on the battlefield, only after nearly losing his own in the trenches in France. In Republican Spain he fulfills his idealism, yet before long politics destroy a romance, compromise his achievement, and drive him to seek refuge and purpose in the vast expanse of China. Here, in the service of the man eventually known as Mao Zedong, Bethune contends with Nationalist and Japanese enemies and begins this account of failed loves, cherished beliefs, discoveries, and reversals for the only person who still makes a future seem the daughter he has never seen. Storytelling at its best—passionate, wrenching, compelling—about a complex, contradictory man caught in the relentless sweep of history.
המחיר שלנו:
35
₪
Argentine author Marcelo Birmajer uses his recurring character, Javier Mosan, to present a complicated political tale with roots in his country’s troubled past. Mosan, a journalist who does his best to avoid writing stories, spends a great deal of time indulging in sexual fantasy. When his editor asks him to interview Elias Traúm, an Argentinean who now lives in Israel, he thinks that it is just another routine assignment. Traúm and two dead friends were known as the “three musketeers” when they fought in the left-wing Peronist guerrilla group, the Montoneros. Javier goes to the airport to meet Traúm and ends up getting a severe beating. Traúm is kidnapped. He is later dumped by the side of the road and, Javier, relieved to learn that they both survived, finds himself drawn to the account of Traúm’s past despite orders from his editor to drop the story. Readers who enjoyed Nathan Englander’s The Ministry of Special Cases will find this compelling, too. It provides insight into the world of Argentina’s Jewish community as well as a top-notch conspiracy plot.
המחיר שלנו:
25
₪
From the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession comes this richly imaginative story collection that transports the reader to a world where opposites--passion and loneliness, betrayal and loyalty, fire and ice--clash and converge. A beautiful ice maiden risks her life when she falls in love with a desert prince, whose passionate touches scorch her delicate skin. A woman flees the scene of her husband's heart attack, leaving her entire past behind her. Striving to master colour and line, a painter discovers the resolution to his artistic problems when a beautiful and magical water snake appears in his pool. And a wealthy Englishwoman gradually loses her identity while wandering through a shopping mall. Elegantly crafted and suffused with boundless wisdom, these bewitching tales are a testament to a writer at the height of her powers.
המחיר שלנו:
30
₪
An exciting literary debut: the unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and to America. Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
המחיר שלנו:
30
₪