Exhilarating . . . How often can you say about a harrowing, unquiet
book that it makes you wrestle with your soul? --Neel Mukherjee, The
Times (London)
It's 1948 and the Arab villagers of Khirbet Khizeh are about to be
violently expelled from their homes. A young Israeli soldier who is on
duty that day finds himself battling on two fronts: with the villagers
and, ultimately, with his own conscience.
Published just months after the founding of the state of Israel and the
end of the 1948 war, the novella Khirbet Khizeh was an immediate
sensation when it first appeared. Since then, the book has continued to
challenge and disturb, even finding its way onto the school curriculum
in Israel. The various debates it has prompted would themselves make
Khirbet Khizeh worth reading, but the novella is much more than a
vital historical document: it is also a great work of art. Yizhar's
haunting, lyrical style and charged view of the landscape are in many
ways as startling as his wrenchingly honest view of modern Israel's
primal scene.
Considered a modern Hebrew masterpiece, Khirbet Khizeh is an
extraordinary and heartbreaking book that is destined to be a classic of
world literature.