Israel In Translation

On the shores of Israel's Sea of Galilee lies the city of Tiberias, and in Shemi Zarhin’s novel Some Day, it is a place bursting with sexuality and longing for love. Zarhin's hypnotic writing renders a painfully delicious vision of individual lives behind Israel's larger national story. The air is saturated with smells of cooking and passion. Young Shlomi, who develops a remarkable culinary talent, has fallen for Ella, the strange neighbor with suicidal tendencies; his little brother Hilik obsessively collects words in a notebook. In the wild, selfish but magical grown-up world that swirls around them, a mother with a poet's soul mourns the deaths of literary giants while her handsome husband cheats on her both at home and abroad. Shemi Zarhin was born in Tiberias in 1961, and is a novelist, film director, and screenwriter who has created some of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning films in the history of Israeli cinema, including Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi (2003), Aviva My Love (2006), and The World