Sleeping on a Wire

Oct 7, 2024 2:21 PM

Author:David Grossman,Hiam Watzman

Sleeping on a Wire

Israel: Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel.

In the summer of 1991 David Grossman set out on a journey into the world of Arab citizens of his country. Sleeping on a Wire is an account of what he found. It is about men and women fighting to find a voice, to pick out the pulse of their own identity in a land that doesn't seem to be theirs. He has not written about open conflict. Rather it is a story of ferment beneath the surface, and an intensifying bitterness which can only exacerbate the troubles of the Middle East.

Reviews

Intelligent, sympathetic, resonant and accessible

—— Nick Hornby , Sunday Times

Outstanding... Unblinkingly harsh, this journey is also, in its sheer honesty and decency, a work of hope

—— Observer

The Yellow Wind established Grossman as one of Israel's finest political writers. His latest examination of the Palestinian tragedy is of equal quality, sympathetic without being patronising, sensitive to the point of pain

—— Robert Fisk , Independent

A writer of passionate self-honesty, unafraid to ask terrible questions

—— Nadine Gordimer

A fine, sympathetic book... Its insights reverberate far beyond the Middle East

—— Scotsman

Grossman has continued the honourable tradition of giving voice to the vocally disenfranchised

—— Independent

Grossman is an acute and sceptical observer, reckoning with the double and triple languages his subjects use to negotiate their lives in Israel, wrestling honourably with his own reactions

—— Sunday Times

He is a good and honest and comprehending listener

—— Christopher Hitchens , Guardian

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