THIRST: The Desert Trilogy
Fiction/Jewish Studies
192 pages
Paper, $16.95
1-56279-088-9
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Esteemed Israeli writer Shulamith Hareven completes her greatest project with this trilogy, a collection of three linked novellas set in the biblical era, now in English for the first time.

“Evocative and lush prose.”
— New York Times Book Review

“The trilogy gives the reader an opportunity to savor Hareven's historic drama, deft characterizations, and haunting style.”
— Hadassah

“First-rate fiction, beautifully translated, by one of the world's great contemporary women writers.”
— Publishers Weekly

When The Miracle Hater, the first novella in Shulamith Hareven's trilogy Thirst, first appeared, it was immediately hailed as a classic. Reynolds Price wrote, “I've read many novels and stories that attempt to imagine some part of the Bible; none has succeeded like this lean book.” Now Thirst is triumphantly completed with its final installment in Hillel Halkin's excellent translation from the Hebrew.

The Miracle Hater re-creates the wanderings of the Hebrew people under the austere leadership of the remote and aloof Moses; in Prophet, as the city of Gibeon collapses into anarchy, a solitary soothsayer seeks answers with a ragtag band of Hebrew nomads; Moran, a woman from the mountains, brings a new sense of feminine strength to a small desert village in After Childhood, the concluding novella.

Here Hareven achieves her greatest work, bringing the biblical past to life with her sure and powerful voice. The trilogy brings vivid drama, characterization, and emotion into high relief against its desert backdrop, as Hareven creates a palpable reality that rings true to its biblical and historical antecedents.

In November 1997, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie unveiled an initiative to encourage every Reform Jew to read four significant Jewish books a year. Since then, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (UAHC) has annually selected eight volumes in recommended reading. In their winter 2001 issue, Reform Judaism magazine honored Shulamith Hareven's THIRST: A Desert Trilogy, citing it, alongside Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, as a Significant Jewish Book.

THE VOCABULARY OF PEACE
Jewish Studies
256 pages
Paper, $14.95
1-56279-072-2
World

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In this substantial collection of essays — her first in English — the distinguished Hebrew writer promotes understanding as the prerequisite of peace.

“Shulamith Hareven is a great writer.… Her essays, whether about the place of charisma in leadership or moral considerations in decision-making, have become a basic text to anyone willing to understand the complexities of Israeli politics.”
— Shimon Peres

“[Hareven's] breadth is clearly evident in this cogent, perceptive, and very accessible collection of essays.”
— Publishers Weekly

On an administration building in Gaza are written the words LOVE, BROTHERHOOD, PEACE, FRIENDSHIP. “Just one problem,” observes Shulamith Hareven in this wise and eloquent collection of essays. “They are written solely in Hebrew.” Faced with such failure of vision, Hareven proposes a new “vocabulary of peace.” Conflict in the Middle East, she reminds us, is a battle not of strength against strength, but of weakness against weakness: “two deeply traumatized societies from which a completely new life, a different world, new hope must be built.”

Hareven understands the roots of the present crisis, for her work is deeply grounded in the culture and history of her home, Jerusalem. For her, “life, culture, and politics” are intertwined; she moves easily between myth and literature and politics and contemporary concerns, always from her unique Levantine perspective. Rejecting “the tyranny of the past,” she envisions a new age of Judaism that would replace the ancient patriarchal establishment. Always her goals are the same: “justice, truth, and peace.”

CITY OF MANY DAYS
Fiction
256 pages
Paper, $11.95
1-56279-050-1
World

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The classic novel, now in a revised, “director’s cut” edition: “A volatile and aromatic book … bursting with the sensuous images, pungent smells, street noises and tensions of Jerusalem.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“Brilliant.… Hareven’s poetic narrative is powerful enough to foment an intense desire to make that historic, spiritual, memorable pilgrimage [to Jerusalem].”
— Los Angeles Times

“If Shulamith Hareven were 3,000 years older, I’d suspect her of having written the Song of Songs. As things stand, however, she had to write a new one. Jerusalem, city of chiaroscuro and flame, of crippled olive trees and climbing roses, writes her own poetry; only a few capture the cadences.”
— Jerusalem Post

City of Many Days traces the interwoven lives of many residents of Jerusalem in the years of the British mandate, the decades that formed its modern character. Hareven, through her unique polyphonic writing, creates characters who are instantly empathetic, intriguing, and credible — in a few lines, we know them, homebodies and prostitutes, Arabs and Jews, patriots and recluses, military men and country cooks, rebels and informers, and many more make up an unforgettable mosaic of the shimmering city, Jerusalem.

TWILIGHT and Other Stories
Fiction
144 pages
Paper, $10.95
1-56279-012-9
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“Exotic ancient history comes alive here, re-created freshly by the author’s novelistic skills and imagination, aided by bits of dark humor and dry wit, and unimpeded by any romanticizing inclination.”
— The New York Times Book Review

“Shulamith Hareven, one of Israel's most revered writers, uses language that is sparse yet evocative. Complex images spring from a few words, creating beautifully written fiction that is a pleasure to read.”
— San Francisco Chronicle

“Engrossing and haunting, and the prose is full of beautiful surprises.”
— Lilith

With haunting imagery and luminous prose, Twilight and Other Stories examines the fragile line that separates truth and illusion, the real and the imagined. Set mostly in Jerusalem, these stories, like those of Joyce's Dubliners, build an unforgettable portrait of a city from the delicate and unique perceptions of its inhabitants. Twilight and Other Stories displays Shulamith Hareven's unerring psychological insight in richly textured prose spiced with poignant humor and ephemeral, surreal twists.