Waking Lions
After an exhausting night shift, Dr. Eytan Green leaves the Beersheva hospital where he works, gets into his luxurious SUV and speeds down a deserted Negev road. When he hits someone, he is horrified to discover that the injured man, an Eritrean migrant, has no chance of surviving, and he flees the scene. He goes home to his wife Liat–a high-ranking police investigator–and their two sons, to carry on with his life as if nothing had happened. But his life turns upside down the next morning when a young black woman knocks at the door. She is the dead man’s widow and Eytan realizes that she knows what has happened. At first, he thinks that she wants money; in fact, she wants something quite different. In a deserted garage deep in the desert, she forces him to give free medical assistance to sick and wounded people who have infiltrated into Israel from Africa and cannot afford to go to a doctor or a hospital. Eytan’s fate is now in the hands of this beautiful, strong woman who both attracts and repels him.
Interlaced with extortion and power struggles, this is a suspenseful social and moral drama; a story of intimacy at the heart of alienation, and of erotic attraction between opposites. But it is also the story of a single choice, a specific moment that makes a man open his eyes and ask, “Who am I, actually?” Ayelet Gundar-Goshen takes an unrelenting look at the darkest corners of Israeli society and of the human soul. And the reader, whoever he or she may be, will ask, “What would I do in this situation?”
- Languages
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Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Turkish
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English
London, Pushkin Press, 2016; pback: 2016;
New York, Little, Brown, 2017; pback: 2018;
Audio: Ohio, Findaway World, 2017 -
German
Zurich, Kein & Aber, 2015;
Frankfurt/Zürich/Vienna, Book Club Gutenberg, 2015;
pback: Zurich, Kein & Aber, 2016 -
Italian
Florence, Giuntina, 2017 -
Turkish
Istanbul, Koton, 2016 -
French
Paris, Presses de la Cité, 2017 (softcover edition), 2019 (pback);
Carrieres-sur-Seine, A vue d'oeil, 2017;
Book Club, France Loisirs, 2017;
10/18, 2018 -
Dutch
Amsterdam, Atlas, 2018 -
Romanian
Bucharest, Nemira, 2018 -
Russian
Moscow, Sindbad, forthcoming -
Slovak
Bratislava, Artforum, 2017 -
Spanish
Buenos Aires, Libros del Zorzal, 2019 -
Polish
Kraków, Jagiellonian University Press, 2019 -
Czech
Prague, Garamond, 2019 -
Portuguese
Sao Paulo, Todavia, 2020;
Elsinore, 2021
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Title | Waking Lions |
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Writer's Last Name | Gundar-Goshen |
Writer's First Name | Ayelet |
Genre | Fiction |
Publisher (Hebrew) | Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan |
No. Pages | 317pp. |
Book title - Hebrew (phonetic) | Lehaʹir Arayot |
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“Skillfully translated by Sondra Silverston, “Waking Lions” is a sophisticated and darkly ambitious novel, revealing an aspect of Israeli life rarely seen in its literature.”
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““Waking Lions” yokes a crime story to thorny ethical issues in ways reminiscent of Donna Tartt and Richard Price… It’s a rare book that can trouble your conscience while holding you in a fine state of suspense.”
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“Vividly imagined, clever, and morally ambiguous… it's a smart and disturbing exploration of the high price of walking away, whether it be from a car accident or from one's own politically unstable homeland.”
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“The most explosive voice of the new generation of Israeli writers.”