North American rights for The Hilltop were sold to Paul Whitlatch at Scribner Books, the excellent publisher of Don Delillo, Stephen King and many others, a division of Simon & Schuster.

An interview by Alexis Brunet in the French blog La Cause Litteraire.

Read interview >>>

Not sure when Assaf Gavron’s The Hilltop is due out in English but when it’s translated, make sure to read the only decent novel on settlers

— Anshel Pfeffer (@AnshelPfeffer) March 26, 2013

Selected in Time Out Tel Aviv’s “Sexiest People in Town” issue.

Interview about the new buses for Palestinian workers in the West Bank. Written by Alessandra Baduel.
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Some translated excerpts from reviews of The Hilltop in the Israeli press (for a wider list, please see The Hilltop page in this website):

“An intense, funny and violent novel… a wonderful book… Gavron’s Magnum Opus, written with the pretension and dare of The Great Israeli Novel.” Yehuda Nuriel, Yediot Achronot.

“Gavron loves his characters. The settlers in The Hilltop are not ideological scarecrows, even when ideology has an important role in their lives. The Hilltop is not an anthropological book about the settlers. It is a story about a hill on which people live. A small hill in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of everywhere. It is a universal story, and also a very private story.” Motti Fogel, Achbar Ha’ir Magazine

“A groundbreaking attempt to move the focus to the settlement as the setting of the Israeli Story.” Yoni Livne, Yediot Achronot

“I’m always happy to read a new book by Assaf Gavron. from this generation he is really one of those who have the language and the ability to sweep you into a story with the speed of a crocodile collecting his prey down into the water. He simply plucks you into it and you are there. He achieves an almost impossible deed and manages to write about the settlers reality objectively, meaning, he is telling a story first. Wonderful.” Jacky Levi, GLZ Radio

“A dazzling novel… A clinically accurate and stunningly powerful description of the state of affairs in the twenty first century Israel. The Hilltop manages to connect emotionally to the situation and at the dame time to laugh at it from the outside.” Ran Bin-Nun, Yediot Achronot

“The Hilltop avoids didacticism and turns reality into a game between images, a game whose rules are so complex and vague that it is-and will remain-impossible to identify who the victor is.” Omri Herzog, Haaretz

“The Hilltop is a novel about human weaknesses, about the exhausting places that drive all of us and about the moment of clarity that sometimes awaken us, but paralize us in other moments. Assaf Gavron did not write a novel about the fact that we are all human beings, he simply wrote a novel about human beings.” Anat Gafni, Mako

Read and watch the full video >>>

Full article (Italian) >>>

Interview about “The Hilltop” with Yehuda Nuriel in Yediot Achronot

Full interview (Hebrew) >>>

The German edition will be published in September 2013.

Here is the announcement. Details of an event in Paris January to follow.

Announcement (French) >>>

Read article (Dutch) >>>

Hydromania was announced as the winner of the WIZO Netherlands literary award in Amsterdam today.

In second place came De Held by Jessica Durlacher, and in third place 7 Dagen, 7 Nachten by Jonathan Tropper.

Announcement (Dutch) >>>

Award page (Dutch) >>>

Here’s the answer >>>

An interview by Petra Lambeck in the Deutsche Welle website, on the recent award in Cologne, the recent operation in Gaza, etc.

German version >>>

English Version >>>

“When the cannons roar, the TV pundits don’t shut up.”

An opinion piece about the israeli media and social media during the operation in Gaza.

English version >>>

German version >>>

Arabic version >>>

An article about the experience of of rockets in Tel Aviv. Published in the Koelner Stadt Anzeiger.

Read (German) >>>

The award ceremony, reading and discussion in Cologne’s theatre, started a week of events in Cologne and the area, celebrating the “Buch fuer Die Stadt” award given by the Cologne Literaturhaus and the newspaper Koelner Stadt Anzeiger to Croc Attack (together with Thyme and Stones by Palestinian writer Sumaya Farhat-Naser).

Here are several articles about the different events of the week (including my visit to the Schalke-Arsenal Champions League match), published in the Koelner Stadt Anzeiger (German): >>>

A story in Haaretz English edition (for non-subscribers there is a pdf in a separate post): >>> 

The winner will be announced on 29 November.

More information: >>>

Events to mark the award will take place in the Cologne area in November 2012. Details will be published later.

The new edition on Amazon >>>

A special edition will be printed and several events will take place in the city during November 2012.

A box-set edition that includes the previous winners of the award (Murakami, Pamuk, Calvino…).

I share this year’s award with Palestinian author Sumaya Farhat Naser.

An article in Koelner Stadt Anzeiger >>>

I appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation. The show was broadcasted live in front of an audience in Aspen, Colorado. With me on the segment titled “Writers offer alternate lens on modern Middle East” were Iranian-American writers Reza Aslan and Firoozeh Dumas.

Listen or read transcript >>>

A short piece on the Haifa Writers leagues tournament featuring Germany, Italy and Israel.

Published in the Jewish Daily Forward.

Read article >>>

Article in Haaretz (Hebrew) >>>

Haaretz published a story on the Haifa International Writers league football tournament, that kicked off yesterday with a draw between Israel and Germany.

Read article >>>

The Hilltop will be published in Israel by my new publisher, Books in the Attic. My previous four books were published by Kinneret-Zmora-Bitan.

Haaretz story (Hebrew) >>>

The other participants will be the writers football teams of Germany and Italy.

All the games and event will take place in Haifa, as part of the national Book Week. The main sponsor is the Haifa Municipality.

English with French subtitles.

Watch video >>>

A short text I wrote about dolphins appeared in the book “+-5 metres” of the French photographer Jow Bunni.

The book assembles hundreds of photos taken in oceans around the world (up to 5 meters above or below the water surface) by Bunni himself, together with related texts by various writers from 13 different countries.

Each text, story or poem appears in the book in 13 languages.

The book is published by SOS Oceans, a non-profit organization aiming to help save marine environment.

It was presented by Sarkozy to 20 heads of states in the G20 summit in November.

Prince Albert II from Monaco wrote a forward and will host an exhibition in Monaco during 2012.

The book is also supported by UNESCO.

You can read the book online here >>>

Produced and published by iCast >>>

Read by Einat Weizman

Jerusalem Post >>>

Link >>>

On this list of writers supporting Occupy Wall Street.

Full list >>>

Link to show >>> (Item is between 3:00-4:15 mins)

Review of Almost Dead in the Boston Bibliophile blog.

Read full review >>>

This and other photos were taken in Paris by Philippe Matsas for OPALE agency.