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Waking Lions tells the story of Dr Eitan Green, a neurosurgeon living in self-imposed exile in Be’er Sheva, after whistle-blowing on corrupt practices at his former hospital in Tel-Aviv.
Green is married to Liat, a police investigator, and they have two sons. After a long shift one night, Green while returning home knocks a man over. Upon inspection Eitan knows that he cannot save this man, an Eritrean refugee, and he drives off. The next day the refugee’s widow comes to Green’s house, returns his wallet and sets a time and place to meet Green.
The blackmail that follows cleaves Green’s life into different, opposing sections and threatens him, his marriage and his family, especially when his wife is assigned the unsolved case of an Eritrean refugee.
Clinical psychologist Gundar-Goshen uses her knowledge of human nature to devastating effect in investigating how one accident changes so many lives. Gundar-Goshen also uses her journalistic background -she was a news editor for Yedioth Ahronoth -to shine a light on Eritrean refugees living in Israel.
In an interview, Ayelet traced the origin of this novel back to a conversation she had with a fellow Israeli while backpacking through India. The real Eitan Green was a good person who had knocked over an Indian, while motorcycling in the Himalayas.
Fear of ending up in an Indian prison resulted in him leaving a dying man on the side of the road. After this story was related to Ayelet, she was haunted by such evil from a good person.
Sirkit, the blackmailing Eritrean widow is a powerful character – one of the most haunting in contemporary fiction. Gundar-Goshen remarks on how African economic migrants and refugees walk across the Sinai Desert, in the footsteps of the Children of Israel, to arrive at a promised land of economic opportunity.
Tying strands of Israeli society into a tight, beautifully written narrative, Waking Lions presents timeless moral challenges with no quick route to salvation.
The book was critically received in Israel and in England, where it was published by Pushkin Press, a small independent publisher specialising in foreign fiction translated into English.
The book has been optioned by a TV production company to be made into a mini-series.
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is a fabulously talented writer, and Waking Lions firmly establishes her at the forefront of Israel’s pride of young writers.
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