Nava Semel’s “Isra Ilse”

This week Marcela reads from Nava Semel’s novel, Isra Ilse, an alternative history of the Jewish People in which there was no state of Israel, and no holocaust.

The novel is divided into three parts. Part 1, a detective story, opens in September 2001 when Liam Emanuel, an Israeli descendant of Noah, learns about and inherits Grand Island, which is downriver from Niagara Falls. He leaves Israel intending to reclaim this “Promised Land” in America. Shortly after he arrives in America Liam disappears. Simon T. Lenox, a Native American police investigator, tries to recover Israel’s “missing son.”

Text:

Nava Semel, Isra Ilse. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Mandel Vilar Press (October 17, 2016)