Lavie Tidhar: Maror

How do you build a nation? It takes statesmen and soldiers, farmers and factory workers, of course. But it also takes thieves, prostitutes and policemen. Nation-building demands sacrifice. And one man knows exactly where those bodies are buried: Cohen, a man who loves his country. A reasonable man for unreasonable times. A car bomb in the back streets of Tel Aviv. A diamond robbery in Haifa. Civil war in Lebanon. Rebel fighters in the Colombian jungle. A double murder in Los Angeles. How do they all connect? Only Cohen knows. Maror is the story of a war for a country's soul – a dazzling spread of narrative gunshots across four decades and three continents. It is a true story. All of these things happened.