Meir Shalev, one of Israel's most celebrated young novelists, is the author of The Blue Mountain, Esau, and But a Few Days, all of which have been literary and commercial successes. His latest novel, The Loves of Judith, is an "hommage to love".

Meir Shalev is also a columnist with the Israeli daily, Yediot Aharonot. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife and children, where he is a motorcycle and jeep enthusiast.

Review of The Loves of Judith

The Loves of Judith, also published under the title Four Meals, is a novel that reads like a Chagall painting. The mystical qualities of the characters make the novel a visual reading experience. One can't help getting caught up in the dreamlike state of life in Kfar David, a farming village.

While the reader follows the story of Zayde's quest to understand more about his deceased mother, he spends time with his fathers, three men from the village who claim parentage.

Zayde's mother Judith named him "grandfather" to help ward off the angel of death. Her logic being that whenever the angel of death would encounter a child named Zayde, he'd understand there was a mistake and move on to someone else.

With a mother leaving a legacy like that, Zayde manages to discover and uncover some of the mysteries his mother left behind upon her death.

The rich descriptions together with the mythic quality of the language leave the reader wanting to visit the village and see how life continued where the story left off.

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