Adama

THERE IS NO LAND WITHOUT BLOOD, AND I WATER THIS LAND WITH THE BLOOD OF MY MEN.

Ruth’s family were in Budapest when the Nazis came. Now Ruth is in Palestine, amid the bare hills inland from Haifa, breaking the rocky soil of an unyielding land before it breaks her.

With her comrades, her fellow kibbutzniks, she will build a better world. There will be green grass, orange trees and pomegranates, a land that is their own and no one else’s.

So they till their fields, dig their wells, build their homes and forge a new way of living, fiercely proud of their shared pursuit of a dream.

But as one generation begets another, the dream unravels, twisted into a dark tapestry of secrets and lies; sacrificed for revenge, forbidden love and murder.

A sweeping historical epic following four generations of a single family as they struggle to hold on to their land and each other.

'Tidhar [is] fast emerging as the leader of a new wave of Israeli literature' Daily Mail

Adama is an unstoppable masterpiece... If history is a nightmare we’re all trying to wake up from, then Adama is a trumpet blast that rings out the past and into the future. Junot Díaz

As a study of biblical comeuppance, the land and the blood have the last say. I recommend Adama as an instructive primer for today's generation of Israeli politicians. There are, indeed, lessons to be learned. Jewish Chronicle

Word by word I was drawn deeper and deeper into this incredible book – a story of inheritance, loss, longing and what could have been. Lavie Tidhar's prose is beautiful, his characters lacerating and heartbreaking by turns. I loved it. Catriona Ward