City of a Thousand Gates

A novel of great humanity, compassion and astonishing immediacy, this unique debut portrays the emotional reality of contemporary life in the West Bank and the irreconcilable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A collage of narrative voices and different points of view are woven around the murder of two young people, one Israeli and one Palestinian.

Brave and bold, this gorgeously written work of fiction introduces a large cast of characters in a setting where violence is routine, even normal, and where survival is defined by boundaries, walls and checkpoints that force people to live and love within and across them.

Hamid has come into Israeli territory illegally to work. He runs into Vera, a German journalist on her way to Jerusalem to cover the story of Salem, a Palestinian boy who is in a coma after being beaten by Israeli teenagers. On her way to the hospital, Vera runs in front of a car driven by Ido, a new father, who is distracted by thoughts of a young Jewish girl murdered by a terrorist. Ori, an eighteen-year-old soldier from a nearby settlement, is guarding the checkpoint through which Hamid’s professor, Samar, must pass.

This powerful novel delivers an eminently human, complex and compassionate view of an irreconcilable conflict. Sacks writes unflinchingly about the hate and violence that continues to fuel tensions in the West Bank. It’s an extraordinary debut work of fiction that mines the range of shared human emotions with riveting engagement and understanding.