Longlisted for the Womens Prize for Fiction

Yael, Avishag and Lea grow up together in a tiny, dusty village in Israel. They attend high school, gossip about boys, and try to find ways to alleviate the universal boredom of teenage life. Then at eighteen they are conscripted into the army.

Yael trains marksmen, Avishag stands guard watching refugees throw themselves at barbed-wire fences and Lea, posted at a checkpoint, imagines the stories behind the familiar faces that pass by her day after day. All of them live in that single intense second before danger erupts, all of them trying to survive however they can

Shortlisted for The Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize

Shani Boianjiu was born in 1987 in Jerusalem, and she served in the Israeli Defense Forces for two years. Her fiction has been published inVicemagazine,Zoetropeand theNew Yorker. Shani is the youngest recipient ever of the US National Book Foundations 5 under 35 Award. She lives in Israel. This is her first novel.

Searing first novel about three young women coming of age experiencing the 'absurdities of life and love on the precipice of violence' (Vogue)