Second Person Singular

"Fascinating and satirical . . . Addresses the split identity of the Arab Israeli, with its contradictory wishes and its impossible yearnings. Courageously, but also with considerable humor, Kashua . . . sharpens-for both the characters and the readers-questions of belonging, identity, and identification." -from the Bernstein Award citation
Sayed Kashua, the author of two acclaimed novels and creator of the groundbreaking Israeli sitcom, Arab Labor, has been widely praised for his literary eye and deadpan wit. An Arab who writes in Hebrew, Kashua defies classification and lives the very contradictions he captures in his work-straddling two cultures and navigating tricky fault lines with no comfort zone in sight. He has been featured in The New York Times and Newsweek, and his new novel, Second Person Singular, is internationally considered to be his most accomplished and entertaining work yet.

Winner of the prestigious Bernstein Award, Kashua's third novel centers on an ambitious lawyer who is one of the best Arab criminal attorneys in Jerusalem. He has a thriving practice in the Jewish part of the city, a large house, speaks perfect Hebrew, and is in love with his wife, Leila, and their two young children. One day at a used bookstore, he picks up a copy of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata, and inside finds a love letter, in Arabic, in his wife's handwriting. Consumed with suspicion and jealousy, the lawyer hunts for the book's previous owner-a man, according to the inscription, named Yonatan-pulling at the strings that hold all their lives together.

With enormous emotional power and a keen sense of the absurd, Kashua spins a tale of love and betrayal, honesty and artifice, and questions whether it is possible to truly reinvent ourselves, to shed our old skin. Second Person Singular is a deliciously complex psychological mystery and a searing dissection of the individuals that comprise a divided society.

"With Second Person Singular, Sayed Kashua has become one of the most important contemporary Hebrew writers." -Haaretz

"With Second Person Singular, Sayed Kashua has become one of the most important contemporary Hebrew writers." -Haaretz
"Sayed Kashua is one of modern-day Israel's very best writers. . . . Skilfully and powerfully, Kashua narrates two parallel stories, which only barely intersect and yet greatly complement each other."-Der Spiegel

"Kashua uses stark, sometimes harrowing prose to depict young men struggling with the paradox of being Israeli and being Arab. . . . A neurotic, irreverent, and very, very funny man, he has been called the Arab Woody Allen; he prefers to think of himself as Jerry Seinfeld." -Meg Storey, Words Without Borders

"At a time when Israeli attitudes toward Arabs seem to be hardening, Kashua's popularity is especially noteworthy. Second Person Singularhas been a bestseller since it appeared in stores. . . . Kashua's protagonists struggle, often comically, with the tension of being both citizens of Israel and the kin of Israel's enemies." -Newsweek

"As intimated by its name, Second Person Singular is a story of identity, and one as deceptive as its author. . . . With many clues borrowed from Kashua's own autobiography, the story of Second Person Singular cunningly follows two Israeli Arabs, a lawyer and a young social worker. Both have renounced their village heritage, moved to Jerusalem and are now trying to reconcile what they were born as with what they wish to be." -Jerusalem Post

"A fascinating and satirical... novel [that] addresses the split identity of the Arab Israeli, with its contradictory wishes and its impossible yearnings. Courageously, but also with considerable humor, Kashua... sharpens-for both the characters and the readers-questions of belonging, identity and identification." -From the Bernstein Award citation

"Second Person Singular is the story of an identity swap, which begins playfully and ends in a clear betrayal. . . . Like all of Sayed Kashua's works, it's very funny. It's also bitter and pessimistic."-Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung