Книга Меира Шалева "Дело было так" (hадавар hая каха) или, по-английски, "Моя русская бабушка и ее американский пылесос"( My Russian Grandmother and her American Vacuum Cleaner).
Трогательная, легкая, и, судя по всему, практически невыдуманная история семьи Шалева. Главной героиней истоии является баба Тоня, приехавшая в Страну Израиля восемнадцатилетней гимназисткой из городка Рокитно на Украине, сразу вышедшей замуж и впрягшейся в бесконечную работу.
Действие происходит в мошаве Нахалаль, являющегося своего рода Макондо Меира Шалева, и одновременно его же шагаловским Витебском, с чудаками и парящей в воздухе ослицей. Помимо людей и животных, в книге есть и еще один неожиданный одушевленный персонаж - пылесос, присланный из Америки.

A light lunch will be served. The interview will be followed by a Q&A session and a book signing. This event is free and open to the public.

One of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, Meir Shalev was born in 1948 in Nahalal, Israel’s first moshav. He is a bestselling author in Israel, Holland, and Germany; and he has been translated into more than twenty languages.

One of Israel’s most celebrated novelist, Meir Shalev is a bestselling author in Israel, Holland, and Germany. Shalev’s writing is often compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez for his ability to create worlds inhabited by the richness of invention and obsessiveness of dreams....He delivers both startling imagery and passionate, original characters whose destinies we follow through love, loss, laughter and death. Shalev will be interviewed about his latest memoir My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner.

From the author of the acclaimed novel A Pigeon and a Boy comes a charming tale of family ties, over-the-top housekeeping, and the sport of storytelling in Nahalal, the village of Meir Shalev’s birth. Here we meet Shalev’s amazing Grandma Tonia, who arrived in Palestine by boat from Russia in 1923 and lived in a constant state of battle with what she viewed as the family’s biggest enemy in their new land: dirt.

Grandma Tonia was never seen without a cleaning rag over her shoulder. She received visitors outdoors. She allowed only the most privileged guests to enter her spotless house. Hilarious and touching, Grandma Tonia and her regulations come richly to life in a narrative that circles around the arrival into the family’s dusty agricultural midst of the big, shiny American sweeper sent as a gift by Great-uncle Yeshayahu (he who had shockingly emigrated to the sinful capitalist heaven of Los Angeles!). America, to little Meir and to his forebears, was a land of hedonism and enchanting progress; of tempting luxuries, dangerous music, and degenerate gum-chewing; and of women with painted fingernails. The sweeper, a stealth weapon from Grandpa Aharon’s American brother meant to beguile the hardworking socialist household with a bit of American ease, was symbolic of the conflicts and visions of the family in every respect.

The fate of Tonia’s “svieeperrr”—hidden away for decades in a spotless closed-off bathroom after its initial use—is a family mystery that Shalev determines to solve. The result, in this cheerful translation by Evan Fallenberg, is pure delight, as Shalev brings to life the obsessive but loving Tonia, the pioneers who gave his childhood its spirit of wonder, and the grit and humor of people building ever-new lives.

A light lunch will be served. The interview will be followed by a Q&A session and a book signing. This event is free and open to the public.