"Shum Gamadim Lo Yavo'u" (No Gnomes Will Appear), written by Sara Shilo, was received well in Israel: The Kesset Project of the Israel Center for Libraries awarded Shilo's first book for adults, published by Am Oved, and it also won the Sapir Prize for Literature on Tuesday. Until then, Sara Shilo was not a well-known name in Israel's literary community. She lives in the northern town of Kfar Vradim, worked in children's education and only began writing at age 40.

Nonetheless, she was quickly accepted in literary circles. Her book won two prizes before it was published: The Ministry of Culture Prize for a debut novel and the Wiener Prize for a debut novel. It was published in Am Oved's flagship "People's Library" series, edited by author Yuval Shimoni and mentored by David Grossman. It made the best-seller list and received another prize from Tel Aviv University before finally receiving the Sapir Prize.

"The book's popularity was an unbelievable surprise," Shilo says. "The fact that I was considered as candidate for a prize was no longer surprising because I got a lot of feedback, but winning certainly surprised me."

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Shilo, nee Bavli, was born in Jerusalem. She grew up in the city's German Colony neighborhood and studied at the Gymnasia High School in upscale Rehavia. Shilo says that because of her Middle Eastern descent, she always felt exceptional in those surroundings. "I quickly stopped pronouncing the het and the ayin [gutturally pronounced Hebrew letters] - perhaps because I felt that I had to adapt to my environment," she explained at the awards ceremony yesterday, adding that the first question she was asked as a girl always concerned her ethnicity.

In 1976, she joined a Nahal military settlement group, which was based in the developing town of Ma'alot. She remained there with her husband Avner and her children for 15 years. Shilo wrote children's books and organized children's activities based on books and a puppet theater she owned. She also directed the Ma'alot Center for the Arts. She later moved to Kfar Vradim with her family.

"No Gnomes Will Appear" recounts the life of the Dadon family, who live in a small town in northern Israel. The town's residents live under constant threat of Katyusha missile attacks. The family members, in particular the mother, Simona Dadon, are finding it difficult to cope with the death of the father, who was the town's "falafel king." The story is told by four protagonists. Most of the Hebrew is grammatically incorrect and stammers intentionally, to reflect life in a peripheral and socioeconomically deprived town, the backyard of Israeli society.

The book met with critical acclaim as soon as it was published. Literary critic Dror Burstein, whose book "Harotzhim" (The Murderers) was also considered for the Sapir Prize, called it "a masterpiece of Israeli literature." Burstein and other critics defined the novel as a significant work, whose language brings the marginal sectors in Israel to the cultural center. However, others objected to the book and its "grating" language. "Some people tell me they had trouble reading the book," Shilo says. "Others say they overcame the difficulty, and I tell them, 'You passed the Dvora test.' In the book, Dvora is the director of a childcare center and she can't really listen to her employees. This book requires listening. Every book presents a certain challenge. Perhaps that is the challenge of this book."

For many years, Shilo found it difficult to read books because of an attention deficit disorder. On her 40th birthday, she received David Grossman's "Be My Knife." That book changed her life. "I can't describe what this book did to me," she told Neri Livneh in an interview with Haaretz. "Something inside me started to move. I was restless. Before that, I had made several unsuccessful attempts to write for children, but after reading Grossman's book something else happened. It was the month of June and I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed and go to work. For someone who hadn't missed a day of work since age 18, apart from very short maternity leaves, this was something highly unusual. I was in shock. I felt that all I wanted to do was wander the hills with a notebook in hand and write."

Shilo wrote a letter to Grossman and he responded, encouraging her to write. She woke up at 4 A.M., went out to the porch with a pad of paper and a blanket to protect her from the cold, and began to write. Grossman read the manuscript before it was presented to a publisher. This is how the connection between them was established. "His writing opened the door for me. I felt that I could no longer not write," she says. "It instilled courage in me to go the distance."

Last summer, during the Second Lebanon War, Shilo stayed with family in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. As a writer and a resident of the North, she was frequently interviewed in the media. "It was very difficult and it hasn't become any easier since. People in the North suffer from serious post-traumatic stress and a feeling that everything is going to come back at any minute," she says. "Children and adults continue to feel insecure. The pain over what happened is very intense, all those who died and were wounded during the course of the war. It's endless, the human suffering that now moved to Israel's South, because the war that never ends is now located there. When I wrote the book, friends told me that by the time it will be published, no one will remember what a Katyusha is. We lived with the faith - which now appears naive to me - that if we left Lebanon and there was calm for six years, we wouldn't remember what a Katyusha was."

Shilo's book is now being adapted into a film by director Eyal Halfon. Part of the prize involves the book's being translated into a language of Shilo's choosing. Yet, a translation appears to be an impossible mission because of the book's unique language. "Until now, I signed a contract to translate the book with a German and an Italian publisher," Shilo says. "The German translator found an immigrants' neighborhood in East Berlin, where plays are performed in the immigrants' broken language. That's where she draws inspiration for translating my book. I am also amazed that this book will not only be available in another language but also to another culture."

Shilo has now begun writing another book. "I can only say that it won't be in the same style as the first. I returned from that journey with any empty backpack, in terms of style. I am once again looking for a new style of writing."