Reading List
Alon Hilu
Novelist and Playwright
Alon Hilu is an Israeli novelist, born in Jaffa to parents who came to Israel from Syria. He studied dramatic writing at Tel Aviv University and also practises as an intellectual property lawyer.
His first novel, Death of a Monk (2004), retells the Damascus blood libel of 1840 and was shortlisted for the Sapir Prize. The House of Rajani (2008) retells the history of early Zionism through the eyes of an Arab boy and a Jewish settler in Jaffa. Murder in the Red House (2018) is a historical novel about the 1921 killing of the writer Yosef Haim Brenner.
Both of his first two novels have been translated into English.
01
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The Last Barrier
by Reshad Feild
“This book is a mixture of the two things I have been talking to you about. On the one hand, Muslim and Palestinian themes, and on the other hand, the mystical aspects of my book. I was very much attracted to the mystical movement in Islam – Sufism. Lots of people in the UK and the States think that Islam is all about fundamentalism so I wanted to show this more mystical side of Islam as well.” — via Interview, March 2010
02
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The Mysteries of Udolpho
by Ann Radcliffe
“That is exactly what my editor said to me when I told him what I wanted to do. He said, ‘But it’s always sunny there!’ But, Palestine can be gothic because it has many of the remains of old empires, like the Romans and the remains of the Jewish state 2,000 years ago. I also knew that there would be a Muslim boy in my novel whose father would be killed, and I wanted to use the plot of Hamlet.” — via Interview, March 2010
03
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Palestine
by Karl Sabbagh
“After the 48 War the land was taken from them by the Israeli government. And these people told me about the way they see Palestine – missing it, having been forced to live in other countries and being expelled. Their family history is similar to my personal history because my family grew up in the Jewish quarter of Damascus, Syria and they left the country and moved to Israel.” — via Interview, March 2010
04
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Righteous Victims
by Benny Morris
“Benny Morris, together with Ilan Pappe and other historians, is an historian who took it upon himself to check what really happened here in early Zionism. He describes, for example, what happened in 1948. Usually with Israel we tell ourselves that in the 48 War the Palestinians ran away and didn’t want to come back. And he showed that in some cases the situation was quite different.” — via Interview, March 2010
05
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Only Yesterday
by S Y Agnon
“This book takes place in Jaffa between the end of the 19th century and the start of the First World War. My latest book, The House of Rajani, takes place at the same time and in the same place so I was very much inspired by his book. I read it three times in order to get the atmosphere and spirit of the place at that time. Nevertheless, when I read Agnon’s book I do have some criticisms of it.” — via Interview, March 2010