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PRAISE FOR GAIL HAREVEN
“This contemplative inquiry into the nature of love speaks across cultures and introduces a compelling new Israeli voice to English-speaking readers.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Witty and compelling, [Hareven] will leave American readers . . . pining for more.”
—Jessa Crispin, NPR
“Sometimes one has the experience of reading a book and just falling in love with it—because it is so well written, so moving, it gets into your soul. That was my experience when I read The Confessions of Noa Weber.”
—Ha’aretz
“[A] masterly written and translated story. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
ALSO BY GAIL HAREVEN IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The Confessions of Noa Weber
Copyright © 2008 by Gail Hareven
Worldwide translation copyright © 2008 by the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
English translation copyright © 2015 the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
First edition, 2015
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Available upon request.
ISBN-13: 978-1-940953-07-6
This translation was made possible by the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Design by N. J. Furl
Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press: Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627
CONTENTS
Book One: The Garden of Eden and What Came Before
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Book Two: Elisheva
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Book Three: Hitler First Person
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Book Four: One Sweet Sabbath
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
LIES, FIRST PERSON
You should never believe writers, even when they pretend to be telling the truth. Everything that’s written here is pure fiction.
My husband urged me to make this clear at the outset if I intended to tell this story. The version he proposed was somewhat different, as a matter of fact very different, but in any case I promised him to write this introduction.
My husband Oded is a lawyer. He adores me, our children, and our way of life; and I, who love and respect him profoundly, am ready to accept his advice. And to dispose of any doubt let me stress:
None of the characters that appear here, myself included, are real. The first person is not my person, and the events recorded here never happened to me or to anyone I know.
The
