Talk by Author Meir Shalev

Celebrated novelist Meir Shalev’s latest book is the true and unbelievable memoir about the special relationship between his grandmother and the vacuum cleaner her brother-in-law sent her from America. It’s a story of a unique, challenging lady as she fights for the cleanliness of her poor house and the love of her poor husband. Her loving grandson writes about her confrontation with dust and prejudice, mud and criticism, cows and relatives, neighbors and memories. The memoir is a story of ideals and journeys: from Rokitno to the Valley of Jezreel, from Orthodox Judaism to socialism, from California to Palestine, from the Ukraine to LA.

Meir Shalev is a bestselling author in Israel, Holland, and Germany and he’s been translated into more than twenty languages. His books include A Pigeon and a Boy, The Loves of Judith (Four Meals), Fontanelle, Alone In the Desert, But A Few Days, and Esau. 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” (New York Times Book Review).

Shalev is also the author of Beginnings: Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing Firsts, a nonfiction book of essays about the bible, The Bible Now, four collections of essays and twelve children’s books. He lives in Jerusalem and in the north of Israel with his wife and children, where he is a motorcycle and jeep enthusiast. 

Underwritten by the Zina Vladimirsky Memorial Performing Arts Fund Co-sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University and the Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation.