This short novel is about the life of a stand-up comic, as
revealed in the course of one evening’s performance. In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov
Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of stand-up. 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 an awkward, scrawny kid who walked on his hands to confound the neighborhood
bullies. Gradually, as it teeters
between hilarity and hysteria, Dov’s patter becomes a kind of memoir, taking us
back into the terrors of his childhood: we meet his beautiful flower of a
mother, a Holocaust survivor in need of constant monitoring, and 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 would become 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.
The Man Booker International Prize is given to a book in
English translation, with a £50,000 prize for the winning title, to be shared
equally between author and translator.
Its aim is to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works in
translation.
For the longlist, see http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2017/03/man-booker-international-prize-longlist.html. For the shortlist, go to http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/search?q=man+booker+international+prize.
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