A. Yehoshua: A Woman in Jerusalem

The Human Resources Manager

A suicide bombexplodes in a Jerusalem market. One of the victims is a migrant worker without any papers, only a salary slip from the bakery where she worked as a night cleaner. As her body lies unclaimed in the morgue, her employers are labelled unfeeling and inhuman by a local journalist. The manager of human resources is given the task of discovering who she was and why she had come to Jerusalem.

As the image of this once-beautiful dead woman begins to obsess him, the manager turns this duty into a personal mission — he is no longer just saving his company’s reputation by trying to discover her identity and assure her of a dignified funeral. He is now restoring her not only to her family and country but also to common humanity — whilst at the same time conquering the hardness of his own heart.

Born in Jerusalemin 1936, A.B. Yehoshua is the author of nine novels and a collection of short stories. One of Israel’s top novelists, he has won prizes worldwide for all his novels and was shortlisted in 2005 for the first Man Booker International Prize. He lives in Haifa where he taught comparative literature for many years and continues to be an outspoken peace activist. “As a writer, my ethical duty is to use my pen to pierce the black plastic shroud, to open the heart towards death, with love and pity.”