Winter in Jerusalem — Blanche D'Alpuget

Danielle Green's reasons for returning to the city of her birth, Jerusalem, during the first Lebanon War are twofold: first, she is researching a screenplay that she hopes will make her rich; second, she is seeking a reunion with an autocratic Jewish father who has refused to acknowledge her existence for most of her life. After a separation of many years and many miles, she hopes he will be willing to reconcile with her.


In the quest for her past, Danielle is reunited with a former teacher, an old woman of deep wisdom. She falls in love with an Israeli and is drawn into a web of terrorists and nationalists, soldiers and survivors. Yet the confusion, divisiveness and famed aggression of Israel is only the best-known part of an oft-repeated story. The country's progress, hindered as it is by centuries of religious, emotional and political turmoil, provides the backdrop to Danielle's personal journey of growth and self-respect.


Alive with the splendour and pulse of Jerusalem itself, Winter in Jerusalem is a stunning story of a woman caught in the crossfire of her own past and the tangled drama of modern Israel.


Winner of the inaugural Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Award, Australasian division.