Laish by Aharon Appelfeld Schocken Books HK$192
It's almost impossible to learn a new language after the age of 17 without having a noticeable accent, various studies have concluded.
Writing, however, is different: Joseph Conrad, that master of English prose, spoke only Polish until his 20s - and learned French before English. The Ukraine-born Aharon Appelfeld, whose novel Laish follows a convoy of Jews on its way to Jerusalem, is one of Israel's premier Hebrew-language authors - and he learned the tongue as a teen.
Appelfeld has instilled a love of language into the title character, a 15-year-old boy narrating the story of the pilgrimage from Eastern Europe to Jerusalem. 'I write, and the Hebrew letters fill me with a zest for life,' Laish says. 'A proper sentence that emerges from my pen makes me happy for the entire day.' And: 'It is important that I see the Hebrew letters before I go to sleep. Hebrew letters can redeem ...'
Although translated into clean, unaffected English by Aloma Halter, there are moments when the reader may wish to read or hear the novel's original Hebrew, such as in Laish's confessions above.
'A writer can have only one language, if language is going to mean anything to him,' English poet Philip Larkin has said.