A short story by Israeli author Shani Boianjiu has been published in this week's issue of The New Yorker.
"Means of Suppressing Demonstrations" is part of Boianjiu's first novel, due to be published in September.
Boianjiu, 25, of Kfar Vradim, wrote the book in English. At the end of her military service, she studied at Harvard University, where she won an award for creative writing and a scholarship for a creative writing course in Ireland.
Last year, Boianjiu was selected by the National Book Foundation as one of "5 Under 35" promising young fiction writers. She was nominated on the recommendation of author and National Book Award finalist Nicole Krauss.
"Shani Boianjiu has found a way to expose the effects of war and national doctrine on the lives of young Israelis," Krauss wrote. "So her subject is serious, but lest I make her work sound in any way heavy let me point out how funny she is, how disarming and full of life. Even when she is writing about death, Boianjiu is more full of life than any young writer I've come across in a long time."
"Means of Suppressing Demonstrations" describes Lea, an Israel Defense Forces officer serving at a military roadblock, as she stops to feel her body. "Lea often [said] that she couldn't feel her body. That she could move it, but not feel it. That those were two separate things," writes Boianjiu.
In an interview with the magazine ahead of the story's publication, Boianjiu was asked to recommend Israeli authors unknown to U.S. readers. She named Sara Shilo, Eli Amir and Galila Ron-Feder-Amit.
Boianjiu's novel will be published by Hogarth Press, an imprint of The Crown Publishing Group, part of Random House Inc. Boianjiu is represented by the Wylie Agency, one of the world's biggest literary agents.
The rights to translate the book have been sold in 22 countries. The Hebrew translation is slated to be published by Kinneret Zmora-Bitan in February.
