The House in Talbiya

A sweeping multigenerational novel about two families - one Israeli, one Palestinian - and the house that connects them.

'Close to perfect' JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER, bestselling author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

'I'd follow this writer anywhere' REBECCA MAKKAI, bestselling author of The Great Believers

For every tree, there is a double. One above ground, and another below. There is a tree that is visible, with its branches climbing skyward, and another tree, with a network of roots in the earth, mirror images of each other.

Jerusalem, 1939. A Jewish bookbinder and his young niece, Agata, are hired to repair books at a family library in Talbiya, the fanciest neighborhood in Jerusalem. They arrive at an elegant villa of white limestone, surrounded by flowers and fruit trees. Agata - a refugee from Prague, sent by her parents to avoid the Nazi advance - sees the house's balconies, stained glass windows, and beautiful garden, and thinks, I want to live here, someday.

The house belongs to a family of affluent Christian Arabs, owners of a soap factory in Nablus, with two young sons. Their youngest, Bassam, befriends Agata, and the two spend the summer together in the lavish house.

Nine years later, the Nakba drives Bassam and his family out of the house, and they become refugees in the West Bank. Years after that, Agata and her family move into the house in Talbiya - now in the newly established state of Israel.

Spanning a turbulent century, The House in Talbiya weaves a deeply touching portrait of diaspora, loss, and intergenerational trauma. Vivid and intimate, Omer Friedlander's debut is a beautifully rendered story about exile, immigration, the lives we are forced to live, and the ones we miss altogether.

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Praise for The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land:

'Every one of these stories moved me and taught me something I did not know before' SIGRID NUNEZ

'As outrageously funny as they are outrageously tender' KIRAN DESAI

'Rarely do we encounter a writer so young but also this wise' HA JIN

'Omer Friedlander maps the hidden geography of the human heart like a young Chekhov' ANTHONY MARRA

'A deeply humane writer. Every story is a vivid world unto itself, intensely felt, and often revelatory' NICOLE KRAUSS

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