CLOSE-UP
The Door
To The Secre
Israeli author Anton Shammas opens
the door to a world of reality and
imagination, agony and beauty
and a thousand disguises.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
Features Editor
Il ere is the passageway
hab es-sir, the door to
.
the secret.
It is an Arabic term
for an emergency exit
from which, in times of
danger, one can escape.
To find the door,
open the pages of Arabesques. Come
quietly, quietly and look for a little
boy. His name is Anton.
He leads you into the world of
Arabesques, the story of a Palestinian
family. He takes you down one path
of bright, vibrant and sparkling wild
color, and another that is desolate and
dark.
Close the book and he disappears.
In his place is author Anton
Shammas, who may be the pro-
tagonist Anton of his book, Arabes-
ques. He doesn't say. Yet their lives ap-
pear remarkably similar. He hates
questions about his past, which he
will answer more often than not with,
"Don't you think this is boring?"
Since Harper & Row published
Arabesques two years ago, Shammas'
life has been anything but boring. His
novel, the first written in Hebrew by
an Arab author, tells the story of a
Palestinian family living in the
Galilee in Israel, and of the son who
becomes an author.
The New York Times Book Review
called Arabesques one of the best
books of 1988. Shammas calls it "the
first novel written about Israel the
way I understand Israel."
Today, Shammas lives in Ann Ar-
bor, where he has been teaching for
several years at the University of
Michigan.
He's far from home, Israel, but re-
mains active in the life of the state.
24
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 1989
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