Some Day

Words without Borders Best Books of 2013, Coffin Factory Best Books of 2013, and World Literature Today Best Books of 2013.

"Ardent, salty, whimsical, steamy, absurd . . . A wallop to the reader."—Ploughshares

"Beautiful ... reading the book feels like going back in time ."—Yael Stone, actor in Orange is the New Black

“Since I was little, I have thrilled at reading food-related passages in novels. But the food scenes in Some Day by Israeli novelist Shemi Zarhin are on another level. In one passage, Zarhin describes a dish so vividly I felt compelled to re-create it in my own kitchen … My mouth watered."—Leah Koenig in Modern Jewish Cooking

"Extremely moving."—Miami Sun Sentinel

"Zarhin has added his name to the luminaries of Israeli literature."—The Arts Fuse

"This thrilling, fresh, and surprising novel ought to draw the eyes of the literati back to Israel."—ForeWord Reviews

"Masterful . . . haunting . . . sublime . . . Zarhin's characters are so real they fairly jump off the page."—The Jerusalem Post

On the shores of Israel's Sea of Galilee lies the city of Tiberias, a place bursting with sexuality and longing for love. The air is saturated with smells of cooking and passion. Young Shlomi, who develops a remarkable culinary talent, has fallen for Ella, the strange neighbor with suicidal tendencies; his little brother Hilik obsessively collects words in a notebook. In the wild, selfish but magical grown-up world that swirls around them, a mother with a poet's soul mourns the deaths of literary giants while her handsome husband cheats on her both at home and abroad.
Some Day is a gripping family saga. Shemi Zarhin's hypnotic writing renders a painfully delicious vision of individual lives behind Israel's larger national story.

Shemi Zarhin, born in Tiberias in 1961, is a novelist, film director, and screenwriter who has created some of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning films in the history of Israeli cinema.