Israel In Translation

Host Marcela Sulak reads the opening essay from Etgar Keret's memoir The Seven Good Years, about the seven years between the birth of his son and the death of his father. Marcela also explains why, although Keret is Israeli, the book was never published in Hebrew nor released in Israel. As Keret waits in the hospital for his wife to give birth, he's surrounded by the victims of a terrorist attack that has just occurred, and is pestered by a journalist looking for an "original" reaction to the mass murder. "Six hours later, a midget with a cable hanging from his belly button comes popping out of my wife’s vagina and immediately starts to cry. I try to calm him down, to convince him that there’s nothing to worry about. That by the time he grows up, everything here in the Middle East will be settled: peace will come, there won’t be any more terrorist attacks, and even if once in a blue moon there is one, there will always be someone original, someone with a little vision, around to describe it perfectly." The