Sealand
Galia, a young teacher, and Natan, a retired bank clerk, live in the same apartment building. But their little world is turned upside down when a Bulgarian migrant worker, in flight from his employer, enters their building. Confronting the harsh rules of the global village and its absurd immorality, the two neighbors come up with a plan to smuggle the Bulgarian out of the country.
In the background, Galia starts a romantic relationship with Michael, who has unusual views on education. He introduces Galia to Sealand, a micro-nation situated on a military offshore platform 12 kilometers off the eastern coast of England―a metaphor for a quiet rebellion, to create one’s own rules within the law. Michael also tells Galia about his wish to set up a personal video channel where he can broadcast 24/7 as an artistic statement. Galia encourages this idea, which stimulates the young couple and plays an interesting role in their relationship.
Sealand is an intimate story about seemingly ordinary people who lead subversive lives. The meeting between the four characters leads each one to examine the limits of his or her personal space and those of law and sovereignty.
-
“Noga Albalach is a daring writer, whose originality and love of literature can be seen in each of her short stories and in this novel. She has many contradictions: her concise language is splendid, her irony is refined…Her writing is original and full of vitality, opening the eyes and the heart, helping her readers to see the world in which we live, and to understand it a little better. A little differently. Her novel Sealand deserves a special mention … It is filled with fine and precise observations saturated in restrained humor, and is excellently organized with abundant variations on the central theme: The desperate attempt to break through the thick skin of existence and to tough out the extreme, the unique, the mysterious, the anarchic, and ultimately the human. ”
-
“In this wonderful novel, Albalach uses a narrative method that is different from what we are used to in Israeli literature; few details of the past are known, the future is obscure.”
-
“Albalach injects into the heritage of Kenaz a surprising and non-manipulative warmth that strengthens the impact of her writing. ”
-
“Albalach’s style is distinctive: clear and restrained, with very little decoration. But as Sealand’s protagonists proceed on their journey, everything becomes more open and freer: the protagonists’ gestures to each other, the writing itself…Even the supporting characters are described with sensitivity and enrich the scene.”
-
“Sealand, Albalach’s first novel, deepens her unique voice. She creates sensitive, clear and touching insights from ordinary daily materials, even news items…With delicate irony and compassion, she leads her quiet protagonists along a daringly subversive path. ”