City of a Thousand Gates, Bee Sacks
City of a Thousand Gates, Bee Sacks
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City of a Thousand Gates
A Novel

Author: Bee Sacks

Narrator: Lameece Issaq

Unabridged: 13 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Harper

Published: 02/02/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

“A stunning first novel…imbued with foreboding at every turn…Through her vibrant characters, Sacks paints a moving and powerful portrait of those who love the region passionately despite its many tensions and dangers.”                                                   --Booklist (Starred Review)

"A beautifully written, brave, and incredibly compassionate novel. I couldn’t put it down.”             --Etaf Rum

"Sacks deeply humanizes a conflict that dehumanizes on every level.”                                                --Nicole Krauss                  
Brave and bold, this gorgeously written novel introduces a large cast of characters from various backgrounds in a setting where violence is routine and where survival is defined by boundaries, walls, and checkpoints that force people to live and love within and across them.
Hamid, a college student, has entered Israeli territory illegally for work. Rushing past soldiers, he bumps into Vera, a German journalist headed to Jerusalem to cover the story of Salem, a Palestinian boy beaten into a coma by a group of revenge-seeking Israeli teenagers. On her way to the hospital, Vera runs in front of a car that barely avoids hitting her. The driver is Ido, a new father traveling with his American wife and their baby. Ido is distracted by thoughts of a young Jewish girl murdered by a terrorist who infiltrated her settlement. Ori, a nineteen-year-old soldier from a nearby settlement, is guarding the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem through which Samar—Hamid’s professor—must pass. These multiple strands open this magnificent and haunting novel of present-day Israel and Palestine, following each of these diverse characters as they try to protect what they love. Their interwoven stories reveal complicated, painful truths about life in this conflicted land steeped in hope, love, hatred, terror, and blood on both sides.City of a Thousand Gates brilliantly evokes the universal drives that motivate these individuals to think and act as they do—desires for security, for freedom, for dignity, for the future of one’s children, for land that each of us, no matter who or where we are, recognize and share. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the
audiobook.

About Bee Sacks

Bee Sacks (they/them) holds an MFA from the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. Their debut novel, City of a Thousand Gates, was awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for fiction in 2023. A former journalist, they worked at Vanity Fair for several years before moving to Israel/Palestine to study sacred Jewish texts. Bee now lives in Los Angeles with their dog, Pupik.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on February 26, 2021

City of a Thousand Gates is a thoughtful literary portrayal of life and conflict in contemporary Israel and Palestine. With a cast of over twenty uniquely voiced, nuanced characters, it’s an ambitious endeavor that’s surprisingly intimate. While the number of characters challenged me, the author dre......more

Goodreads review by Sara on February 12, 2021

I wanted to love this book. In places, I did love the book - lyrical and tragic, shaped by two factions, unwilling and unable to see just how alike they are with their covered women, richly spiced food, and intertwined histories. The second half was better than the first, but alas, the heart of the s......more

Goodreads review by Umar on March 02, 2021

Ambitious, but fell way short. I wanted to like this book and at times I did. A few of the main problems. 1. The universalization of American concepts of race focusing on whiteness. Israel and Palestine aren't places where whiteness is the main focus (although colorism definitely exists). Instead di......more

Goodreads review by Kristy on February 28, 2021

2.5 There were so many characters in this, I had to check the list in the front almost every chapter to know who each person was. I couldn't even keep the Israelis and Palestinians straight. Some of them could have been left out and not altered the story at all. The writing in this was very repetitive......more

Goodreads review by Crystal on January 20, 2021

A new interpretation of the movie “Crash.” A story that examines both sides of war. Looking into the Israel/Palestine dispute from all sides and explaining how each side lives and thinks. For me, there were too many characters and backstories to keep up with. #GoodreadsGiveaway......more