The Lion Seeker

Set in the tough streets of Doornfontein, Johannesburg, in the years leading up to the Second World War, The Lion Seeker tells the coming-of-age story of one Isaac Helger, the son of Jewish immigrants, whose mother, Gitelle, suffuses his young life both with an overpowering sense of his mission--to obtain for the family, as she says, "a house of our own"--and with the duty never to forget those family members left behind in the tiny village of Dusat, Lithuania. But it is the terrible unspoken secrets of the family's past that form another more enduring legacy for Isaac, one that haunts him even as he makes his way in the world, one that will lead to the moment when he must face the starkest moral choice of his life as the threat of war looms like a storm cloud over the Jews of Europe.

The Lion Seeker brilliantly brings to life the world of South African Jewry in all its raw energy and ribald vernacular as Isaac struggles not only towards his lifelong goal, but also against his own impetuous temper and sensuous nature. Comedic, searing, lyrical and with a snap-perfect ear for dialogue, The Lion Seeker is a profoundly moral exploration of how wider social forces act on families and individuals with lasting relevance for the present moment.