The Smile of the Lamb - Couverture rigide

'Bold, grand, mad, an astonishing meditation on art, religion, love, politics and war, despatched in language which is funny, ferocious and enraptured' Observer

Uri and Katzman are Israeli soldiers occupying a Palestinian village in the West Bank. Uri is idealistic and full of hope, feels the injustice of the occupation keenly, and becomes close to Khilmi, the village storyteller. Katzman on the other hand is 'a contracted muscle' - he has taught himself not to feel. And Shosh, Uri's wife, daughter of liberal immigrant parents and juvenile psychiastrist, is succumbing to her own struggles with power and truth.
When Khilmi's adopted son is killed in a 'security operation' and when Uri discovers how far deception and injustice have penetrated into his own life, their reactions are drastic and unforseen.

'Moving, many-layered, powerful, yet written with beautiful delicacy of touch, a work of redemption...this book deserves the widest possible audience' Indepdendent

'Extreme, enormous, almost embarrasingly good, a first novel whose very last page somehow fuses together the political and spiritual currents running through modern day Israel' Time Out

'A courageous novel, the first attempt by an Israeli author to articulate how 'the conqueror is also the conquered, and injustice has teeth in its tail' Guardian

'Masterful irony and passion' Evening Standard

Also by David Grossman: [sleeping on a wire jpeg], [intimate grammar jpeg]

"An extraordinary achievement...moving, many-layered, powerful, yet written with beautiful delicacy of touch, is a work of redemption... Combining the compassionate wisdom of the moralist with a true artist's creative imagination, this book deserves the widest possible audience" (Indepdendent)

"Bold, grand, mad, an astonishing meditation on art, religion, love, politics and war, despatched in language which is funny, ferocious and enraptured" (Observer)

"A courageous novel, the first attempt by an Israeli author of the post-1967 generation to come to terms with the consequences of the Occupation, to articulate how 'the conqueror is also the conquered, and injustice has teeth in its tail'" (Guardian)

"Extreme, enormous, almost embarrassingly good, a first novel whose very last page somehow fuses together the political and spiritual currents running through modern day Israel" (Time Out)

"At once sensitive, humane, elegiac and devoid of optimism, save a vague faith in love" (Sunday Times)