The Heart is Katmandu

Yoel Hoffmann -- Israel's most highly acclaimed avant-garde novelist (a "genius" in the words of Kirkus Reviews) -- has in his new novel launched off into fresh territories. His hero, whose wife has left him, floats aimlessly about Haifa. One day he meets Batya, and a raw, awkward love is born. The Heart Is Katmandu is a book in which shyness and stumbling tenderness emerge triumphant: a tale of paradise gained. Published to enormous acclaim in Israel this year ("In this book Yoel Hoffmann flies more beautifully than any other Israeli author I know", Ma'arive Magazine), The Heart Is Katmandu takes a very surprising leap away from the wrenching sadness of the Holocaust which informed the agonizing beauty of Bernhard as well as of Katschen & The Book of Joseph.