A major, internationally bestselling novel of extraordinary power about the costs of war from one of Israel's greatest writers.

Set in Israel in recent times, this epic yet intimate novel places side by side the trials of war and the challenges of everyday life. Through a series of powerful, overlapping circles backward in time, it tells the story of Ora's relationship with her husband, from whom she is now separated, as well as the tragedy of their best friend Avram, a former soldier — and her son's biological father. When her son Ofer rejoins the army for a major offensive, Ora is devastated and decides to hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the "notifiers" who might deliver the worst news a parent can hear. She phones Avram, whom she has not seen in 21 years, and convinces him to go with her. As they journey together, Ora unfurls the story of her family, and gives Avram the gift of his son — a telling that keeps the boy alive for both his mother and the reader.

Never have we seen so vividly the surreality of daily life in Israel, the consequences of living in a society where the burden of war falls on each generation anew. David Grossman's rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great anti-war novels of our time.


From the Hardcover edition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

"Very rarely, a few times in a lifetime, you open a book and when you close it again nothing can ever be the same. To the End of the Land is a book of this magnitude. David Grossman may be the most gifted writer I've ever read.... Powerful, shattering, and unflinching. To read it is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence." 
— Nicole Krauss

"This is a book of overwhelming power and intensity, David Grossman's masterpiece. Flaubert created his Emma, Tolstoy made his Anna, and now we have Grossman's Ora — as fully alive, as fully embodied, as any character in recent fiction. I devoured this long novel in a feverish trance. Wrenching, beautiful, unforgettable." 
— Paul Auster

"There are some writers in whose words one recognizes the texture of life. David Grossman is such a writer. His characters don’t so much lie on the page as rise before the reader’s eyes, in three dimensions, their skin covered in prose that both stabs with insight and shines with compassion."
— Yann Martel


From the Hardcover edition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page

DAVID GROSSMAN is one of the leading Israeli writers of his generation, and the author of numerous works of fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, and been translated into twenty-five languages around the world. He lives on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

JESSICA COHEN's translations include David Grossman's award-winning Her Body Knows and critically acclaimed works by Yael Hedaya, Ronit Matalon, Amir Gutfreund, and Tom Segev.


From the Hardcover edition.

 Back to top | e-mail or print this page