"The further away anyone was from that block of Ben Yehuda street, the easier it seemed to find a solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, that stubborn mess in the center of the Middle East and the more I studied these solutions, the more I thought that they depended for their implementation on a population of table football men, painted in the colors of the two teams: blue and white for the Israelis, green, red and black for the Palestinians. All the international community had to do was to twist the levers and the little players would kick and swing and send the ball into the net, to victory." One block of a Tel Aviv street is the starting point for Linda Grant’s exploration of the inner dynamics of Israel—not the government and its policies, but the people themselves in all their variety. Iraqi shop-keepers, teenage soldiers, mob bosses, Tunisian-born settlers, Russian scientists, and the father of the victim of a suicide bomber are just some of the people she meets.
Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.
Her first book, Sexing the Millennium: A Political History of the Sexual Revolution was published in 1993. Her first novel, The Cast Iron Shore, published in 1996, won the David Higham First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Remind Me Who I am Again, an account of her mother's decline into dementia and the role that memory plays in creating family history, was published in 1998 and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year award and the Age Concern Book of the Year award. Her second novel, When I Lived in Modern Times, set in Tel Aviv in the last years of the British Mandate, published in March 2000, won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Jewish Quarterly Prize and the Encore Prize. Her novel, Still Here, published in 2002, was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Her non-fiction work, The People On The Street: A Writer's View of Israel, published in 2006, won the Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage. Her Booker Prize shortlisted novel, The Clothes On Their Backs, was published in February 2008. Linda's most recent book, The Thoughful Dresser was published in March 2009.
She has written a radio play, Paul and Yolande, which was broadcast on Radio 4 in October 2006, and a short story, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, part of a week of stories by Liverpool writers commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Beatles, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, broadcast in July 2007.
She has also contributed to various collections of essays. Her work is translated into French, German, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Czech, Russian, Polish, Turkish and Chinese.
Awards
The Clothes On Their Backs Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008
Winner South Bank Show Award
The People on the Street:
A Writer's View of Israel Lettre Ulysses Prize for Literary Reportage
When I Lived in Modern Times Winner, Orange Prize for Fiction 2000
Shorlisted: Jewish Quarterly Prize
Encore Prize
Remind Me Who I Am, Again Mind Book of the Year 1999
Age Concern Book of the Year 1999
The Cast Iron Shore David Higham First Novel Prize
Shortlisted Guardian Fiction Prize
