calliecachat 's review for:

Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar

3.0

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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This was assigned for my Cross-Cultural Contemporary Literature course. The writing was difficult to understand in parts, with long, lyrical and descriptive sentences. This book was also translated from Hebrew and originally written in 1948 which adds to the potential confusion. That being said, it grabbed my attention in many places with the narrator’s internal monologue. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the land of Israel and the perspective from which this story is told. These descriptions of nature are wrought with metaphors of the ongoing conflict being shown in the novella. This was an interesting perspective after having read Ibtisam Barakat’s Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood and, of course, while watching the ongoing war between Israel and Gaza today. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, War