Heatwave and Crazy Birds

Author: Gabriela Avigur-Rotem 

Translator: Dalya Bilu 

Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press (2001)

An extraordinary lyrical novel about a culture seeking to bury its origins, which date to the Holocaust, preferring the biblical to the recent past.

When her archeologist father died, Loya Kaplan cut all ties and left Israel (apparently) for good. Twenty-five years later, sleepwalking through life, Loya is summoned back to Israel following the death of Davidi, her father’s friend (or rival, or lover, or nemesis). Returning to a homeland become alien, and to a house filled with relics of herself, her family, and even ancient history, Loya’s story tears itself apart: the life she once led in an improvised neighborhood, filled with concentration-camp refugees and secrets, must collide with the antiseptic, well-fed present day.