In the beginning was love, the love of Xana and Michael just before the Suez Crisis, the beloved city, the political landscape, and the feeling that no matter what happens, nothing truly changes.

In the book that established him as the most significant contemporary Israeli writer, Amos Oz describes Jerusalem within a war setting, at a time when the State of Israel has not yet been born, but a single national identity is beginning to form within a mosaic of languages and cultures.

“A modern Israeli Madame Bovary. A novel distinguished by its warmth, its lyricism, and the admirable handling of its writing.” The New York Times