By Keith Meatto
A little girl on a kibbutz is born pregnant and believes that her baby will be the Messiah. A Haitian-Jewish student comes to school on Purim in Muslim garb… with a bomb strapped to his chest. An image of the Virgin Mary appears in a synagogue before the High Holy Days.
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By Keith Meatto
A rich young couple hire a star architect to build them a dream house with a living room made of glass. High on newlywed bliss and the envy of their neighbors, they view their home as “a kind of perfection, the finest instrument for living.” So far, so good — only he’s Jewish, she’s Gentile and they live in Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II.
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By Keith Meatto
As a novelist, Jonathan Safran Foer writes with a certain whimsy about violence. In “Everything Is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” fictional treatments of the Holocaust and the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks contain humor and lyricism to deflect the horror below the surface. Foer’s questions of life and death come from quirky narrators: a Ukrainian tour guide, a latchkey kid who speaks like a noir detective, even a “character” named Jonathan Safran Foer. Fiction frees Foer to swing at charged topics from a perch of safety.
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By Keith Meatto
In 1994, more than 100,000 Cubans fled the island on improvised boats, abandoning their homeland, and 35 years of revolution, to seek a better future. Cuban-born poet, journalist, and novelist Achy Obejas sets her new novel, “Ruins,” in Havana during that exodus, but focuses on a man who chooses to stay.
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