A MOVING, OFTEN TROUBLING EXPLORATION OF FAITH, SELF- BELIEF AND IDENTITY… THE WRITER HAS A RARE COURAGE. THIS IS A NOVEL FROM A SKILLED STORYTELLER WORKING AT

THE HEIGHT OF HIS POWERS’

Times Literary Supplement

Tel Aviv. A suicide bomber has killed 19 in a packed city centre restaurant. Dr Amin Jaafari, an Israeli Arab, is a surgeon at a nearby

hospital. Respected and admired by his colleagues, the doctor represents integration at its most successful. But this night of turmoil and death takes a horrifyingly personal turn as his beloved wife’s body is found among the dead…could she have caused the devastation?

Intense and humane, thoughtful, sensitive and heartfelt, the book displays a profound understanding of what can seem

incomprehensible.

The fuse lit at the beginning of the novel crackles through the story to its clever destination’

Daily Telegraph

‘Khadra is a passionately moral writer, but he rarely sits in judgement…

A magnificent novel, believable and moving’

Literary Review