BOOK OF INTIMATE GRAMMAR, THE - Softcover

David Grossman, the leading Israeli novelist of his generation, showed himself in his internationally acclaimed novel, See Under: LOVE, to be a consummate artist of the inner life of the child. Now, in his most moving and accessible novel yet, he gives us the story of the greatest and most universal tragedy, the loss of that childhood world. At twelve, Aron Kleinfeld is the ringleader among the boys in his Jerusalem neighborhood, their inspiration in dreaming up games and adventures. But as his friends begin to mature, Aron remains imprisoned for three long years in the body of a child. While Israel inches toward the Six-Day War, and while the voices of his friends change and become strange to him, Aron lives in his child body as though in a nightmare. Like a spy in enemy territory, he learns to decipher the internal codes of sexuality and desire, to understand the unyielding bureaucracy of the human body. Hurled between childhood and adulthood, between the pure and the profane, he is like a volcano of emotions and impulses. But, like his hero Houdini, Aron still struggles to escape from the trap of growing up. The Book of Intimate Grammar is about the alchemy of childhood, which transforms loneliness and fear into creation, and about the struggle to emerge as an artist. Funny, painful and passionate, it is a work of enormous intensity and beauty.

David Grossman was born in Jerusalem, where he still lives. He is the bestselling author of numerous works of fiction, non-fiction and children's books, which have been translated into thirty-six languages. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and the 2010 Frankfurt Peace Prize. His most recent novels were To the End of the Land (2010), described by Jacqueline Rose in the Guardian as `without question one of the most powerful and moving novels I have ever read', and Falling Out of Time (2014).