Ashes and Other Stories

Naomi Shepherd

If you want to get a feel for life in Israel read these short stories. The themes are universal - immigration, retirement, teenage rebellion, adultery - but the characters' reactions to their dilemmas could happen nowhere else in the world. I found it a fascinating book but very sad.

Extract

He had assumed that Edouard, with his European education and tastes, served his own priests and tribesmen with the same devotion with which he himself served a country he did not know, and where perhaps he did not quite belong. He recalled what Hans had once said to him: 'People like ourselves not only are obedient servants whatever the regime. We also attribute our own standards to every rascal we encounter.'

Parallels