The desert is a place where good and bad are wedded
like sun and shade, where a stranger is always
received and always shut out, a place where the
common language is often silence or guns, where
the horizon is wide and the boundaries narrow??
Leora, in the Novel Sulha.
SULHA tells the story of Leora, an Israeli war
widow now living in Canada who, twenty years
after her husband's death in the Sinai War,
is obliged by law to decide whether or not
to allow her only son to serve high-risk
duty in the Israeli Air Force. Charged with
such a burden, Leora leaves her uneasy exile
in Toronto, returning to Israel, ancient and
modern.
Venturing first to the
mountains of Sinai, she stays with a remote
Bedouin tribe, who offer her a glimpse of
the other; the mysterious Arab world that so
fascinated her as a child; the enemy that
her son might face. And indeed, mounting
danger and mystery pervade the air of the
Bedouin compound. But are these people
really the enemy? Is SULHA- forgiveness,
understanding- not possible here? The modern
Israel to which Leora then returns offers no
clear answers, and a deep enmity towards
her. To her former compatriots, she is the
other- outsider, exile, even a deserter from
the Land for which her husband gave his
life. SULHA is the story of one
woman's search for the answer to her son's
future, and through it the reconciliation of
her own fragmented past. In the process, it
explores the interlocking, sometimes
irreconcilable boundaries of love and
loyalty-to a people, to a land. Intensely lyrical, captivating and inspired SULHA is an unforgettable
reading experience, and introduces a remarkable, original new voice in fiction.
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