The Attack
ABOUT
THE BOOK
Ammine, a surgeon in a Jerusalem hospital, struggles to cope with the mangled bodies of victims of a suicide bombing in a downtown Jerusalem pizza restaurant. He is harassed, well-meaning, utterly dedicated and professional – and a naturalised Israeli Arab.
When the police pin responsibility the suicide attack on Ammine’s wife, he is at first baffled, disbelieving and angry. But his feelings turn to confusion and sorrow when he discovers his wife was indeed behind the attack, as he travels to Nazareth and Gaza, attempting to discover who could have convinced his wife to do such a thing, and why she might have done so. His life, he discovers, is a lie: not only the lie told to him for several years by his wife – a naturalised Arab who slowly became political – but also the lie he has been telling himself, that his place as an Arab in Israeli society is normal: that the intifada is an abberation, that he – educated, civilised, cosmopolitan, with a beautiful house and Jewish friends who come to dinner – is the future of Arabs in Israel.
(From Publisher)
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR John
Cullen
John Cullen in the translator of more than twenty books from the French, Italian, German, and Spanish. His translations of Margaret Mazzantini’s Don’t Move (from the Italian) and Yasmina Khadra’s The Swallows of Kabul (from the French) were short-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Cullen is the also the co-author with Alexandra de Borchgrave of Villard: The Life and Times of an American Titan. Originally from New Orleans, he lives in Connecticut with the writer Valerie Martin.
John Cullen in the translator of more than twenty books from the French, Italian, German, and Spanish. His translations of Margaret Mazzantini’s Don’t Move (from the Italian) and Yasmina Khadra’s The Swallows of Kabul (from the French) were short-listed for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Cullen is the also the co-author with Alexandra de Borchgrave of Villard: The Life and Times of an American Titan. Originally from New Orleans, he lives in Connecticut with the writer Valerie Martin.