David Grossman, the celebrated Israeli novelist, deconstructs the myth of Samson with the mastery of a scholar and the language of a poet. Writing of Samson the man instead of Samson the hero, Grossman finds that the story of a lost soul in turbulent times powerfully echoes our own times.

A couple, long married, are spending an unaccustomed week apart. Ya'ari, an engineer, is busy juggling the day-to-day needs of his elderly father, his children, and his grandchildren. His wife, Daniela, flies from Tel Aviv to East Africa to mourn the death of her older sister. There she confronts her anguished brother-in-law, Yirmiyahu, whose soldier son was killed six years earlier in the West Bank by friendly fire." Yirmiyahu is now managing a team of African researchers digging for the bones of man s primate ancestors as he desperately strives to detach himself from every shred of his...

A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice
Winner, 2012 Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
The greatest Hebrew novelist. Jewish Review of Books
An aging Israeli film director has been invited to the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. When Yair Moses arrives, a painting over his bed triggers a distant memory from one of his early films: a scene that caused a rift with his brilliant but difficult screenwriter. Upon his return to Israel, Moses decides to travel to the south to look for his elusive former partner and propose...