Sunburnt Faces
When Flora Elhayani is twelve years old, God appears to her through the television and suddenly she can speak again, after being mute for two months. She then changes her name to Ori, and outwardly, her life in the desert town of Netivot continues as before. Inwardly, however, she does not know how to deal with the revelation and her attempt to understand it forces her towards maturity.
We meet Ori again twenty years later in Tel Aviv, married to a successful man and the mother of a little girl. In the meantime, she has a become a well-known writer for young adults, who focuses on various Wonderland themes. And then a second revelation, very different from the first, rattles the foundations of her life and puts all in doubt.
With surprising realism, Sunburnt Faces examines the nature of revelation in a world so detached from God that any communication between him and man only takes place in situations of error and doubt. But will the social and political nature of this world allow Ori to find the certainty without which she cannot live?
-
“ It carries one away with laughter, tears and bewilderment through its amazingly beautiful language: quick and merry, supple and confident, its feet in ancient books and prayers... and its head high up in the skies-touching the highest, clearest and most brilliant poetry.”
-
“ It moved me, thrilled me, saddened me, made me laugh and was thought-provoking... I read it more than a month ago, but I still find myself thinking about Ori Elhayani... When something like this happens - and it happens so rarely - I know I have read a genuinely good book.”
-
“ Something big happens, something sublime shimmers in the blazing air, and Adaf`s neo-classical Hebrew resonates with unseen prophetic force... He makes us read with the eyes of a grownup and the spirit of a child.”