Publisher's Synopsis
A Jewish youth, 18 years of age, a native of Bulgaria - a country still bearing the imprint of the horrors of the Second World War, which has just ended, and in which he served as an anti-fascist partisan - sets out to study medicine in Prague... The book traces his subsequent career, from student to trainee pilot to pioneering medical scientist, culminating in the traumatic spiritual experience which utterly changed his life.
The story is leavened with honest accounts of sometimes fraught personal relationships - as well as tense relationships with Communist Party apparatchiks, his former comrades. A 'Pilgrim's Progress' for our times, which happens to be true...
"I read 'Erral' almost in one breath. I couldn't put it down and I can't wait to reread it. The book astonished me with its openness, its fearlessness and rejection of literary conceits... an exploration of free will, with the personal challenge of carnal impulses - and the explosive finale. An outstanding piece of writing.
Prof. Natti Ronel, Bar-Ilan University
"This is a book in which form and content blend perfectly to create a powerful work of art. Rhythmic, concise sentences describe the course of a life lived to the full, with steadfastness and courage and without compromise. With stunning sincerity, the plot exposes mankind as he is, unvarnished and unadorned, and leaves the reader breathless. From between the lines there emerges a firm and irresistible aspiration towards truth and the true."
Prof. Gideon Dror, Tel Aviv Academic College. Shlomo Kalo is thinker, novelist and one of the
most prolific writers in Israel. Some of his 80
published fiction and non-fiction titles, written in
a variety of genres and themes, have appeared
in 16 countries.
