Ayelet Gundar-Goshen was born in Israel and studied Clinical Psychology. Her debut novel, One Night Markovitch, was published to critical acclaim. Her new novel, Waking Lions, tells the story of Israeli doctor Eitan Green. After an exhausting night shift, he leaves the hospital and speeds down a deserted, moonlit Negev road. Then, suddenly, he hits someone. He is horrified to discover that the injured man – an African migrant – has no chance of surviving. He flees the scene.
When the victim’s widow turns up unannounced at Eitan’s door, intent on blackmail, he finds that it isn’t money she’s after, but something quite different.
Waking Lions takes an unrelenting look at the darkest corners of Israeli society and of the human soul; at the complexities of displacement and the fear of estrangement. Originally published in Hebrew, Pushkin Press published in English translation in March 2016.
Our reading groups were lucky enough to read Waking Lions and had several pressing questions for Ayelet:
All life decisions impact us to a greater or lesser degree. Have you in your life made a decision that impacted you so much that it inspired you to write this book or did the inspiration come from elsewhere? Longlevens Reading Group
“I was twenty years old when I met the protagonist of this novel. I was travelling in India and met a young Israeli in a guesthouse. He was just out of military service and out on the adventure of his life. But there was something wrong with him. The guy looked frozen. He didn’t speak, he didn’t do anything. He just lay on the hammock in the guesthouse and stared at the sky. Something was eating him up inside, that was clear.
Eventually I went to him and asked if he was alright. He told me that several days ago he had hit an Indian man with his motorcycle, and fled.
I was haunted by this story for ten years before I sat down to write it, and one of the reasons was that I couldn’t find the right trail for the protagonist. I didn’t want to write a 300-page novel about a white guy feeling guilty and contemplating it in his decorated living room. Only after I realized that this person is blackmailed by the widow of the refugee he killed – I sat down to write"
The message in this book is far reaching and really ‘struck a nerve’ because the choices Eitan made were not only criminal but impacted his very existence. When you started writing this book was that the intention or did this develop through the writing? Longlevens Reading Group
“I wanted the readers to finish the book with this question: had it happened to you – driving home to your family late at night, hitting an un-named refugee, and no one would ever know – are you absolutely sure you wouldn’t flee? The guy I met in India wasn’t a bad man. And I think had he hit a young Israeli girl he would have taken her to a hospital. But he didn’t hit an Israeli girl, and I believe that’s the difference.
One of the most interesting responses I got was from an Israeli journalist, who told me that he found himself hoping throughout the book the Eitan would get away with it. He knew, of course, that to hit and run is morally wrong, but he couldn’t help but hope that the white Anglo-Saxon guy would eventually be OK. Because he is the white Anglo-Saxon guy.
We want to see Houdini breaking loose and coming back to the surface of the water. We don’t want him drowned. As a white reader, most people want in their hearts to see the white man going down the abyss, facing his demons and win, coming out to feel the morning sun sweeter than ever."
Do you think that any amount of good deeds can erase one act of badness? Moodiesbarn Library Reading GroupThat’s one of the things that bothered me while writing the novel. The arithmetic of “how much good equals one big bad”. I’m not sure I have an answer yet. I like the existential point of view in which a person is the sum of his choices – nothing more, nothing less.
The author write very tellingly of feelings of guilt in the aftermath of a dramatic event – is this from personal experience (bit of a cheeky question!) Longlevens Reading Group
“Cheeky questions are the best questions. I think guilt is a strong motivation for a character, because it means one is haunted by the inside, not the outside. From my personal experience, to be haunted by your boss or mother is much less disturbing than to be haunted by yourself”.
Do you believe that morality and ethics are dying topics of concern in the modern world today, hence the reason for writing the novel? Longlevens Reading Group
“A novel is not a political statement. It’s a novel. It has, of course, political aspects. I believe the two can’t be separated. What we’re talking about here is what it means to be a human being. What moral responsibility – if any – do we carry with us?
“I believe it’s the writer’s job to force the reader to look where he usually avoids looking. When I was working as a news editor, the main question was: how much reality can people take while drinking their coffee in the morning? I hope literature is more than that. I hope it makes people spill their coffee on the table”.
Our question for the author is: How does it feel to have your book translated in so many languages? Are you tempted to read your own book in another language, such as English, if you understand it well enough to be able to read, just to see if the book was done justice in another language? Dorset Library Reading Group
“It’s always a shock to realise that the Hebrew words that I wrote on my desk in Tel Aviv are now read across the sea by people I don’t know, in a language I don’t speak. My English isn’t good enough to read literature – I can hardly make it through a newspaper. I’m too rooted in Hebrew to be able to enjoy any other language. I just hope the music is still there in the translation.
The book includes some quite frank and honest exposés about human waste, and sexual experience. Have you found yourself being criticised or censured for portraying such frank depictions within the novel? Bo’ness Library Reading Group
“People usually imagine authors writing in silence and solitude, but the truth is that there’s nothing more crowded than the room of a writer. When I write a sexual scene I have my dead grandmother in front of my desk, telling me not to forget my manners. Sometimes it’s my parents, telling me to stop writing about family problems, or the critics, the audience, the woman from the bookstore, my ex, my partner, my baby daughter. All of them stand behind me when I write and ask me “why did you write this”. So I do my best to keep my ears shut in this packed room full of criticising voices – and just write".
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Find out more about Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and her publisher Pushkin Press’ website
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