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The man who sold air in the holy land : stories / Omer Friedlander.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Random House, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Edition: First editionDescription: 241 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780593242971
  • 0593242971
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Jaffa oranges -- Alte sachen -- The Man who sold air in the Holy Land -- Checkpoint -- The Sephardi survivor -- The Sand collector -- Scheherazade and radio station 97.2 FM -- High heels -- Jellyfish in Gaza -- \t Walking Shiv'ah -- The Miniaturist.
Summary: "The poignant, whimsically imaginative stories in Omer Friedlander's debut transport readers to the narrow limestone alleyways of Jerusalem, the desolate beauty of the Negev Desert, and the sprawling orange groves of Jaffa. Across the sharply drawn borders that divide them, Friedlander's characters, often outsiders or even outcasts, are haunted by the past, or by the promise of a future that they can see but often cannot reach. A divorced con artist and his young daughter sell empty bottles of "holy" air to credulous tourists; a Lebanese Scheherazade enchants with her nightly tales the three young soldiers occupying a radio station in Beirut; a lonely young boy, obsessed with the bravery of a Polish-Jewish ballerina during the Holocaust, daringly "rooftops" at night, climbing steel cranes in his scuffed sneakers; an Israeli volunteer at a West Bank checkpoint mourns the death of her son, a soldier killed in Gaza. In these stories, moments of fragile intimacy mix with comedy and notes of the absurd; these are fairy tales turned on their heads by the stakes of real life. These stories are the literary equivalent of Chagall's brushstrokes, offering enchantment as they take you somewhere far away yet achingly near, revealing the shared humanity that transcends physical, political, and religious boundaries, with a universal appeal to the heart"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Dr. James Carlson Library Fiction FRIEDLAN OMER Available 33111010990055
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction FRIEDLAN OMER Available 33111010859490
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From "a marvelous new voice" (Rebecca Makkai), these "extraordinarily imaginative" (Sigrid Nunez), "revelatory" (Nicole Krauss), "superb" (Kiran Desai) stories transcend borders as they render the intimate lives of people striving for connection.

WINNER OF THE AJL JEWISH FICTION AWARD * FINALIST FOR THE WINGATE PRIZE

The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land announces the arrival of a natural-born storyteller of immense talent. Warm, poignant, delightfully whimsical, Omer Friedlander's gorgeously immersive and imaginative stories take you to the narrow limestone alleyways of Jerusalem, the desolate beauty of the Negev Desert, and the sprawling orange groves of Jaffa, with characters that spring to vivid life. A divorced con artist and his daughter sell empty bottles of "holy air" to credulous tourists; a Lebanese Scheherazade enchants three young soldiers in a bombed-out Beirut radio station; a boy daringly "rooftops" at night, climbing steel cranes in scuffed sneakers even as he reimagines the bravery of a Polish-Jewish dancer during the Holocaust; an Israeli volunteer at a West Bank checkpoint mourns the death of her son, a soldier killed in Gaza.

These stories render the intimate lives of people striving for connection. They are fairy tales turned on their head by the stakes of real life, where moments of fragile intimacy mix with comedy and notes of the absurd. Told in prose of astonishing vividness that also demonstrates remarkable control and restraint, they have a universal appeal to the heart.

"The poignant, whimsically imaginative stories in Omer Friedlander's debut transport readers to the narrow limestone alleyways of Jerusalem, the desolate beauty of the Negev Desert, and the sprawling orange groves of Jaffa. Across the sharply drawn borders that divide them, Friedlander's characters, often outsiders or even outcasts, are haunted by the past, or by the promise of a future that they can see but often cannot reach. A divorced con artist and his young daughter sell empty bottles of "holy" air to credulous tourists; a Lebanese Scheherazade enchants with her nightly tales the three young soldiers occupying a radio station in Beirut; a lonely young boy, obsessed with the bravery of a Polish-Jewish ballerina during the Holocaust, daringly "rooftops" at night, climbing steel cranes in his scuffed sneakers; an Israeli volunteer at a West Bank checkpoint mourns the death of her son, a soldier killed in Gaza. In these stories, moments of fragile intimacy mix with comedy and notes of the absurd; these are fairy tales turned on their heads by the stakes of real life. These stories are the literary equivalent of Chagall's brushstrokes, offering enchantment as they take you somewhere far away yet achingly near, revealing the shared humanity that transcends physical, political, and religious boundaries, with a universal appeal to the heart"-- Provided by publisher.

Jaffa oranges -- Alte sachen -- The Man who sold air in the Holy Land -- Checkpoint -- The Sephardi survivor -- The Sand collector -- Scheherazade and radio station 97.2 FM -- High heels -- Jellyfish in Gaza -- \t Walking Shiv'ah -- The Miniaturist.

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