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	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Historical adventure fiction

THREE DAYS IN SUMMER

Yossi Avni-Levy

THREE DAYS IN SUMMER takes place in a beautiful Lithuanian town, between a forest and a river, in the midst of a golden, calm summer, in which a world is about to be destroyed. Ordinary people live their lives and dream dreams: a frustrated teacher works on his masterpiece and dreams of becoming a revered writer. An old witch worships on an altar to a pagan god. A store manager is doing good business and secretly cheating on his wife, who, for her part, plans to run away from him and take their strange child with her, one who has not yet started walking. The town's only pharmacist goes out into the woods looking for honey for his miracle potions, and in the horse dealer's stable sits a tall, handsome young man, tormented by forbidden love.

But nothing is calm that summer, when a balding, squat SS officer races on his motorcycle from city to city and village to village.

THREE DAYS IN SUMMER is a chronicle of one fictional town, full of grace and heartbreaking beauty, moving between life and destruction. Yossi Avni-Levy spent three years in Lithuania, among its people, its landscapes, and its bright and dark history, which he sketches in a fierce poetic style.

THREE DAYS IN SUMMER powerfully recounts the final, agonizing days of the Jewish community in the fictional Lithuanian town of Gilishkis before its destruction. Through evocative prose, the novel explores the fragility of life and the enduring strength of the human spirit.

Yossi Avni-Levy is an Israeli writer and diplomat, born to an Afghan Jewish father and an Iranian Jewish mother. He graduated with honors from Hebrew University in Jerusalem in history of the Middle East and Arabic in 1983, earning a bachelor of laws (LLB) degree from the Faculty of Law in 1991. He has served in various positions in Israeli embassies in Berlin, Bonn, Belgrade, and Warsaw. Most recently, he was Israel's ambassador to Lithuania. From 2011 until 2016, he was Ambassador to Serbia. Avni-Levy is the author of the books GARDEN OF THE DEAD TREES, FOUR SONS, A MAN WITHOUT SHADOW, ODE OF THE SINS and THREE DAYS IN SUMMER. In 2008, he was awarded with the Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works. He currently lives with his partner in Israel.

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Book Published 2025-12-03 by Kinneret

Comments

Croatian: Fraktura Italian offer received

The judging panel praised the novel's "sensual and poetic approach," highlighting its capacity to "evoke emotions and shock beyond what many similar books have achieved."

When I first picked up the slim volume that is Yossi Avni-Levy's eighth novel, I was struck by the cover a young girl standing in a field, surrounded by crows. I did not expect to read what was inside. THREE DAYS IN SUMMER by Yossi Avni-Levy was recently awarded the SAPIR PRIZE Israel's most coveted literary award, which comes on the heels of Yossi being awarded the BRENNER PRIZE which is given for an author's entire body of work and is also one of the country's most prestigious literary prizes.

In THREE DAYS IN SUMMER, Yossi Avni-Levy explores the enigma of the calm before the storm, the surprising shift from routine in a pastoral setting to a violent historical event. With a fresh and attentive eye for subtleties, Avni-Levy describes a human microcosm that serves as a parable of the absence of humanity alongside humanity for its own sake. Despite the complexity of the subject, Avni-Levy's writing transitions from prose to poetic expression, soaring from pain to pure beauty.

Yossi is the only author in history to have received both Sapir and Brenner Prizes for the same book.

IT: Feltrinelli