Dror Burstein

Kin

Dror Burstein

Emil, the unwanted child of two young parents, is adopted by Yoel and Leah, a childless couple. Yet, as the years pass, it becomes clear that Emil doesn't bear much resemblance to the parents who've loved and raised him. Is his name the only thing his real parents have left him? Kin traces the movements of Emil and his four parents as they walk through the same city, nearby but apart, searching for each other in the faces of passersby; until Yoel, now old, becomes determined to do the impossible: return his grown son—a lonely man approaching middle age—to his birth parents. In prose that is both minimal and subtly off kilter, acclaimed Israeli novelist Dror Burstein introduces us to an Israel that is as peculiar, and poignant, as Donald Barthelme's America: ranging from an apocalyptic future to the petty annoyances of daily life, from shifting continents to tiny heartbreaks.