Novel
City of Many Days
עיר ימים רבים
Shulamith Hareven · 1972
Synopsis
Jerusalem between 1918 and 1948, under the British Mandate. At the centre, the house of the Amarillos, a Sephardic family settled there for generations, and Sara, who allows herself liberties too daring for her time. Around them, other families, among them that of Professor Barzel, a doctor and musician from Frankfurt, who gradually adapts to the climate and customs of the city, and a host of intersecting lives: stay-at-homes and prostitutes, Arabs and Jews, patriots and recluses. The city grows, and tensions between communities rise.
Context
Hareven had published a first collection of verse under her maiden name, then poems in 1962 and two books of short stories, in 1966 and 1970. She came to the novel at forty-two and took as her subject the city of her childhood, that of the Mandate, where Jews, Arabs and the British lived side by side. The book was published by Am Oved in 189 pages; it was translated into English in 1977 by Hillel Halkin, into French in 1990 by Arlette Pierrot, then into German and Estonian. She held that culture begins where one knows how to distinguish the personal from the public, and spoke little of herself.
Who it is for
A novel of about two hundred pages, translated into French by Belfond. It is better to know that Britain administered Palestine from 1918 to 1948.
Prizes and reception
The author's first novel, translated into four languages; Publishers Weekly hailed it as a fine portrait of interwoven lives.
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