About this item
In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of standup. In the audience is a district court justice, Avishai Lazar, whom Dov knew as a boy, along with a few others who remember Dov as the awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood bullies. Gradually, teetering between hilarity and hysteria, Dov's patter becomes a kind of memoir, taking us back into the terrors of his childhood-his beautiful flower of a mother, a Holocaust survivor in need of constant monitoring; his punishing father, a striver who had little understanding of his creative son. Finally, recalling his week at a military camp for youth-where Lazar witnessed what became the central event of Dov's childhood-Dov describes the indescribable while Lazar wrestles with his own part in the comedian's story of loss and survival.
About the Author
From ithl. org:Leading Israeli novelist David Grossman (b. 1954, Jerusalem) studied philosophy and drama at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and later worked as an editor and broadcaster at Israel Radio. Grossman has written seven novels, a play, a number of short stories and novellas, and a number of books for children and youth. He has also published several books of non-fiction, including interviews with Palestinians and Israeli Arabs. Among Grossman`s many literary awards: the Valumbrosa Prize (Italy) , the Eliette von Karajan Prize (Austria) , the Nelly Sachs Prize (1991) , the Premio Grinzane and the Premio Mondelo for The Zig-Zag Kid (Italy, 1996) , the Vittorio de Sica Prize (Italy) , the Juliet Club Prize, the Marsh Award for Children`s Literature in Translation (UK, 1998) , the Buxtehude Bulle (Germany, 2001) , the Sapir Prize for Someone to Run With (2001) , the Bialik Prize (2004) , the Koret Jewish Book Award (USA, 2006) , the Premio per la Pace e l`Azione Umanitaria 2006 (City of Rome/Italy) , Onorificenza della Stella Solidarita Italiana 2007, Premio Ischia - International Award for Journalism 2007, the Geschwister Scholl Prize (Germany) , the Emet Prize (Israel, 2007) and the Albatross Prize (Germany, 2009) . He has also been awarded the Chevalier de l`Ordre des Arts et Belles Lettres (France, 1998) and an Honorary Doctorate by Florence University (2008) . In 2007, his novels The Book of Internal Grammar and See Under: Love were named among the ten most important books since the creation of the State of Israel. His books have been translated into over 25 languages. See also
