And there’s another person we wanted to talk about but whose name and appearance we have forgotten. We recall only other details. That he was at a distance of a human height from ground level. That he was near and far. That the night covered him and day illuminated him and things like that. This is the most accurate person we remember. And therefore we miss him always and because we can’t recall his name the longing becomes more than one could say.

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This person goes with us everywhere and if it weren’t for him we would have died of heartbreak. And if these things seem like foolishness to someone, that person ought to look into himself.

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This person is also the protagonist of the book we are now writing (and of all the books we have ever written). If we remembered him, we wouldn’t have to write.

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Shortlisted for the 2016 Best Translated Book Award (translated from Hebrew by Peter Cole)

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Rights Sold to:

France, Galaade; Israel, Keter; USA, New Directions 

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Reviews:

"Stylistically innovative and emotionally powerful, Moods manages the rare feat of pinning ephemera onto paper." – Linnie Greene, (freelance writer) Shelf Awareness

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”Not everything that’s bad for your health is necessarily bad for literature. Consider, for instance, disruptions of the heartbeat. That is exactly what Yoel Hoffmann causes: you read and all of a sudden the heart skips a beat on account of a word, a sentence and a paragraph so beautiful or surprising, funny or sad. And these paragraphs rise up from the open page to inspire love in their readers. ” – Shimon Zandbank, Ha’aretz