When Liat meets Hilmi on a blustery autumn afternoon in New York City, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Charismatic and handsome, Hilmi is a talented young artist from Palestine. Liat, an aspiring translation student, plans to return to her family in Israel the following summer. Their intimacy can only be temporary and yet their passionate fling deepens into love as Liat lets herself be enraptured by Hilmi.
Despite the freedom New York offers, Liat and Hilmi still harbor the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within themselves and it threatens to tear them apart. They are caught between their desire for each other and their duties to their families; between the possibility of creating a life together and alienation from their communities. As their time in the city comes to an end, the two must decide whether their love is worth shaking the foundations of their identities.
Tender and fiercely written, ALL THE RIVERS is a love story and a war story, a New York story and a Middle East story and an unflinching foray into the forces that bind us and divide us.
Originally published in Israel as Borderlife, ALL THE RIVERS became the center of a political scandal in January 2016 when the Israeli Ministry of Education banned it from high school curriculums on the grounds that intimate relationships between Jews and non-Jews threaten the Jewish identity. Viewed as a “black day to Israeli democracy,” the novel transformed overnight from a work of literature into a symbol of the threat to freedom of expression in Israel. Now an international bestseller that has been translated into seventeen languages, ALL THE RIVERS raises questions about the convergences of homeland and exile, borderlines and destinies.
About the Author: Dorit Rabinyan is the bestselling author of the acclaimed Persian Brides and Strand of a Thousand Pearls and All the Rivers, which was named as a book of the year by Ha’aretz and awarded the prestigious Bernstein Prize. She is the recipient of the Itzhak Vinner Prize, the Prime Minister’s Prize, The ACUM award and the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Award.
Free Entry, the reading will be held in English
This event is supported by the Israeli Embassy in Berlin.
