Agur SchiffIn 1973, a few months before the Yom Kippur War, the naked body of a girl
is discovered in the sands of Caesarea. Superintendent Ram Dinoor, a highly
regarded police detective, joins the investigation team, but the search for the
murderer quickly takes an introspective turn. Eventually it leads to the Sinai
Desert during the first days of the war.
Dinoor, who was born in Poland and lost his mother in the Holocaust, came
to Israel as a child and created a new, Israeli identity for himself. His estrangement
from his father, a charming Tel Aviv poet who abandoned him as a child,
never bothered him especially, until that fateful summer of 1973, when selfconfident
Israel had to overcome a crisis that changed it forever.
Through his investigation, Dinoor is drawn into the culture of hippies and
flower-children to which the dead girl belonged, together with the boy who was
with her before her death. It breaks open Dinoor`s restricted world, and after he
discovers his relationship to the young boy, his repressed past finally surfaces.
In the Sand is a brilliant, moving detective novel. Schiff uses the traditional
genre`s structure to explore and ironize on the breaking point of Israeli society.
Agur Schiff is one of the most interesting writers in Israel
today.
Ynet
A fascinating allegory of Israeli society
Israel Hayom
A powerful novelist, with a significant personal style.
Schiff writes [in a style of] complex and alienated realism,
but his writing is full of humor.
Prime Minister`s Prize 2010
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