The Falafel King Is Dead | Granta

  • Published: 05/01/2012
  • ISBN: 9781846272226
  • 129x20mm
  • 240 pages

The Falafel King Is Dead

Sara Shilo

The town has lost its famed falafel king, but the Dadon family have also lost a father and husband. Living with the daily threat of Katyusha missiles from neighbouring Lebanon, and struggling to survive amid the rubble of their lives, Simona and her three children each find their own way of coping with their grief, their fear and their hopes. Raw, lyrical, shocking and moving, Sara Shilo’s powerful debut novel recounts the life of an ordinary Israeli family over the course of a single, extraordinary day in prose that we have never before encountered in contemporary Hebrew literature.

I was very deeply moved by Sara Shilo's book. The combination of an original vision with such fierce honesty and compassion is rare; I have not read a more powerful book all year, and it will stay with me for a long time.

Nicole Krauss

With extraordinary talent, Sara Shilo has written a deep and accomplished novel, one which creates an entire world - rich, shocking and heart-wrenching - the likes of which I have never met before in Hebrew literature

David Grossman

The novel is remarkable for the vividness of the five individual voices ... it was not just the quality of writing that marked this novel out. It was also that it focused on a marginalised community of Mizrachi - or Eastern - Jews, whose roots lie in Arab countries ... It is this unique cultural perspective that provides the novel with a convincing political core.

The Times

The Author

Sara Shilo was born in Jerusalem and currently lives in a small town in northern Israel with her family. This is her first book for adults.

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