Thirst: The Desert Trilogy
by Shulamith Hareven
Category: Fiction

Thirst: The Desert Trilogy contains three of Shulamith Hareven’s greatest works: The Miracle Hater, Prophet, and After Childhood. Each of these novellas explores the relationship of the individual to God and society. Hareven writes with great sympathy for the outsider and the rebel, as she explores with subtlety and depth how individuals relate to nature, to society, and especially to the divine. While the three novellas are set in the Biblical period, the author’s authority and conviction render them both timeless and timely. In Thirst, Hareven achieves her greatest work, bringing vivid drama, characterization, and emotion into high relief against an unforgettable desert backdrop. Reviews “The success of Thirst rests entirely on the author's evocative and lush prose.” —The New York Times “These are apocryphal tales that, at their best, possess a shimmering, timeless quality.” —Publishers Weekly Shulamith Hareven was born in Warsaw, Poland but grew up in Jerusalem, where she lived until her passing in 2003. A writer, translator, and activist, Hareven served as a writer-in-residence at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was the first female member of the Academy of the Hebrew language. In 1962, she published her first book, a poetry volume titled Predatory Jerusalem. After that, she wrote and translated prose books and plays. She published essays and articles about Israeli society and culture in literary journals Masa, Orlogin, and Keshet, and in newspapers Al Ha-Mishmar, Maariv, and Yedioth Ahronoth. Her books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Hareven was an activist for Peace Now, and in 1995, the French weekly L'Express listed her among the 100 women "who move the world.” Hillel Halkin is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist, who has lived in Israel since 1970. Halkin translates from Hebrew and Yiddish literature into English. He has translated Sholem Aleichem's Tevye the Dairyman, and major Hebrew and Israeli novelists, among them Yosef Haim Brenner, S. Y. Agnon, Shulamith Hareven, A. B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, and Meir Shalev.