Fate - by Zeruya Shalev (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The paths of two women from different generations cross in this nuanced, heartfelt novel that explores Zionist extremism in 1940s Palestine and the divides in present-day Israel.

When Atara's elderly father dies, he leaves behind a host of unanswered questions about his violent past and his strained relationship with his daughter. Yet one of their final meetings seems to provide a key to understanding: he mistakes Atara for his first wife, Rachel, revealing a warmth and kindness she had never seen in him. Atara sets out to find Rachel and uncover this long-buried chapter of his life. Why did their marriage end abruptly in 1948, after only one year? How were they changed by fighting together in the underground to establish the State of Israel?

Atara's encounter with Rachel will upend her own life and that of her family, sparking an uncontainable cascade of events. As their history is exposed, it illuminates but also casts a pall on the present and the future, confronting each character with dilemmas of fate, control, responsibility, faith, disappointment, and love.

Review Quotes

"Extraordinary...most affecting in depicting the emotional price paid by children of war...Shalev powerfully laments a past that never fulfilled its promise." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Mesmerizing...The ruminative prose cuts across time, savoring the intricacies of people's inner worlds...a panoramic novel about a daughter's search into her father's past and the unexpected kinship she finds because of it." --Foreword Reviews

"Shalev scrutinizes relationships between couples, motherhood, and wounds that never heal, in an ambitious novel in which each character embodies a facet of Israeli society." --Les Inrockuptibles

"The novel is a literary archaeology of familial lies, secrets, and acts of violence. It is the merciless portrayal of moments and illusions in a postmodern, patchwork family. A contemporary masterpiece." --Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Zeruya Shalev confirms an exceptional gift for making the most complex Israeli realities familiar to us." --Lire

"Fate is an extremely provocative read, with many political and religious references. The skillfully crafted multiple reflections of its characters make the narration a very sophisticated one. Zeruya Shalev's new novel is both a funereal song and a drama of freedom, and it fits well with her previous work, which in tasteful abundance tells of touching love adventures weighed down by sorrow." --Die Tageszeitung

"A very beautiful novel in which the inner lives of individuals are, as it were, connected, linked by a fine network of threads and knots to the history and geography of Israel." --Télérama

Praise for Pain

"Shalev reminds readers in keen, often brilliant prose that love, like pain, is indelible...a riveting exploration of family, sex and motherhood." --New York Times Book Review

"Always incisive on the complexities of family and relationship dynamics...Shalev plunges the reader into a whirlwind story of impossible choices." --The Guardian, Best New Books in Translation

"Zeruya Shalev is one of my favorite contemporary writers, her work always spiky and original, and Pain is a searing book, a wild and ravenous story of family entanglement and impossible yearning." --Lauren Groff, author of Florida and Fates and Furies

About the Author

Zeruya Shalev was born at Kibbutz Kinneret. She is the author of five previous novels, The Remains of Love, Love Life, Husband and Wife, Thera, and Pain (Other Press, 2019) and a book of poetry and two children's books. Her work has been translated into twenty-seven languages and won multiple awards, including the Corine International Book Prize, the Welt Literature Award, and the Prix Femina étranger.

Joan­na Chen is a writer and lit­er­ary trans­la­tor from Hebrew to Eng­lish whose trans­la­tions include Agi Mishol's Less Like a Dove, Yonatan Berg's Frayed Light (final­ist for the Nation­al Jew­ish Book Awards), and Meir Shalev's My Wild Gar­den. Her own poet­ry and writ­ing has appeared in the Los Ange­les Review of Books Blog, Mantis, Poet Lore, Consequence, and Nar­ra­tive­ly. She teach­es lit­er­ary trans­la­tion at the Heli­con School of Poet­ry in Tel Aviv.