I Am Leona

Leona was born in Africa, where her father was working. She was loved and happy in her sunlit world. Because there was nobody to keep her occupied, she read avidly from an early age― books raised her, and their heroes were her friends and role models for coping with life. But then things went wrong. One day, Leona had to leave Africa, travel with her grandmother to Israel, and begin an unexpected life. Her experiences cut stormily across social groups, beginning on a kibbutz, continuing in an ultra-Orthodox community and later in the bohemian student milieu of Jerusalem. She gradually grows into an attractive teenager and then a woman who encounters love. On the way, she meets a variety of characters, whom she loves or dislikes, and in order to cope she recalls the heroes in her books, striving to do the right and moral thing.

I Am Leona is a tumultuous novel, inspired by the picaresque novels of the 19^th century. Since Leona’s unique language draws on the books she has been reading since childhood, she often sounds as if she herself had just emerged from their pages. A courageous and inspiring young person, she faces many problems without giving up on the search for the good in human beings.