Meir Shalev (b. 1948) is recognized as the most beloved writer in Israel - this is how a survey of ten thousand readers showed. Critics compare his works with the prose of Pavich and Marquez, and Shalev himself calls Nabokov and Melville his teachers.It was the "Russian Novel" that brought the writer to the leaders of Israeli prose and provided him with world fame. This is a tragic and at the same time ironically mocking epic, the story of people who came to Palestine from Russia and turned the swamps and sands of their new homeland into a flourishing land.In a masterfully constructed narrative, tragedy is intertwined with irony, Russian love with bitter Jewish humor, poetic myth with the rough truth of hard work. The story of the inhabitants of a small valley, conquered from nature, contains a huge world of passion and longing, hopes and suffering, loyalty and pain.A sophisticated plot, subtle psychology and truly biblical power - this is the "Russian Novel" by Meir Shalev.