It all started a few years ago when my brother Daniel, who lives in London, and I visited Karl Marx's grave at Highgate Cemetery (as oddly and suspiciously enough we often do). Beneath the giant monument we decided to write something together. We started the project by finding historical characters and episodes we were interested in (French Prime-Minister, Leon Blum's, arrest by the Nazis, Theodor Herzl's visit to Eretz Israel, Leonard Cohen's visit to the Sinai Peninsula during the Yom-Kippur War and many more). Then we wrote letters to each other about how these historical motifs are connected to our lives outside of Israel, to immigration, to politics and identity. As time went by we wrote about other things too, the music we love, the people we share our lives with, our past, our present and our future.
We began with e-mail messages and Skype conversations. Later, as the project developed, we embarked on a fascinating journey of historical research, joint travels to Germany, Israel, Sweden and England and using our language (Hebrew of course) as we never used it before – we wrote poems, rhymes, fiction and nonfiction, we even wrote a short play.
When we were done, a few years after the idea first came up, we put the pieces together and we finally had a manuscript. Though we sent it to various Israeli publishers, it was not without hesitations. The book, after all, didn’t seem to be too commercial. It wasn't a novel or a collection of short stories; it wasn’t poetry or drama, fiction or nonfiction. It had a bit of all of the above but wasn't any of them.
And then we found Indiebook which fit perfectly. Erez Shwaitzer edited the book and took care of both a printed and electronic edition and now, a few years after its journey began, "An Israeli Cross" is making its first steps in the world.
So here's the bottom line – Both Daniel and I have already been published before. I write for the Israeli press and Daniel has published a couple of novels and a poetry book. This, however, is a very special project for us because it's about the things that really matter, because it allowed us to write in ways we've never written before and most of all because we wrote it together. If you too find this interesting please share it with Hebrew readers you know and accept the gratitude of two brothers who wrote a rather strange and unconventional book and would appreciate anyone who would like to read it.
Here's the link to the book on Indiebook's site: http://goo.gl/0Ntz0n
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דיויד סטברו 