Dearest Anne

Rivy Shenhar is 38, an author, wife and mother. Following the funeral of her former literature teacher, Michaela Berg, in Haifa, she finds diaries she had hidden on Mount Carmel more than twenty years before. Back then, after Rivy wrote an essay on Anne Frank for Michaela, she decided to write letters to Anne, just as Anne Frank herself wrote to her imaginary friend Kitty. The novel contains four diary notebooks that Rivy wrote between the ages of 13 and 17. These notebooks reveal an unconventional story set in the late 1970s in the provincial town of Carmel, most of whose inhabitants came from Europe (first and second generation after the Holocaust). Michaela falls in love with Rivy and an erotic love relationship develops, continuing for two years during which Michaela, who is married, becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son. The diaries also follow the writing of a young girl who wants to become an author. During this time, Rivy matures and questions her sexual identity. But just as the love affair is ending, Rivy`s mother finds the diary and “turns her in” to her school principal. Rivy denies everything, but Michaela is forced to resign and subsequently moves to New York with her family. The novel describes Rivy`s struggle with her unconventional past, and with Michaela`s problematic and complicated personality.

Rivy Shenhar, the main character of this novel, is also the heroine of Katzir`s first novel, Matisse Has the Sun in His Belly.