2024 Sapir and Brenner Prizes winner

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.

Reviews:

“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. Much like the painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, life in the Lithuanian settlement flows gently with its loves, distresses, and affairs, indifferent to the great drama that will change everything. Avni-Levy managed to illuminate an episode from the Holocaust in an innovative way, deliberately straying from the well-trodden path of extensive fiction on the subject. Surprisingly, the writing style is semi-legendary, and the Jewish characters are not at the center. History, thus, becomes timeless, and the timeless and legendary take on a historical dimension. 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.” ―2024 Sapir Prize Judges

“Sensual and poetic approach... Evokes emotions and shock beyond what many similar books have achieved.” ―2024 Brenner Prize Judges