How well do we ever really know those we love? How well do we even know ourselves? When our parents stand in the limelight of history, how do we ever step out of their shadow? In Snapshots, a bold and provocative novel about love, war, the devastation of loss, and trying to find yourself when the world around you is in chaos, award-winning Israeli author Michal Govrin addresses these questions and creates a masterpiece of world literature.
Snapshots opens with the news that Ilana Tsuriel, a beautiful and brash architect, has died in a car crash in Germany. Her estranged husband, a renowned scholar of the Holocaust, asks Ilana’s friend Tirtsa to sort through some of her papers. “You’ll know what to do with them,” he tells her. Ilana’s notes spring to life, including letters to her father, a diary of her relationship with her husband, and the very private story of Ilana’s troubled romance with a Palestinian man named Sayyid. The book also includes the author’s own photos and hand-drawn pictures illustrating Ilana’s travels through America and Israel, creating an interactive reading experience that brings Ilana to life in a unique and innovative way.
With passion and tenderness for her characters, and deep insight into the soul of her native country, Michal Govrin weaves an exquisite tapestry. Snapshots transcends political and geographical boundaries to get to the root of what makes us all human as we embrace love in a world that provides no easy answers.
