The Falafel King Is Dead

I was very deeply moved by Sara Shilo's book. The combination of an original vision with such fierce honesty and compassion is rare; I have not read a more powerful book all year, and it will stay with me for a long time.
With extraordinary talent, Sara Shilo has written a deep and accomplished novel, one which creates an entire world - rich, shocking and heart-wrenching - the likes of which I have never met before in Hebrew literature
The novel is remarkable for the vividness of the five individual voices ... it was not just the quality of writing that marked this novel out. It was also that it focused on a marginalised community of Mizrachi - or Eastern - Jews, whose roots lie in Arab countries ... It is this unique cultural perspective that provides the novel with a convincing political core. - The Times
This is a beautifully drawn account of a family collapsing under an unbearable loss ... Pivoted on a death, this novel becomes a life-affirming story of love - a cluttered, clumsy family love that colours the characters and wills them into keeping on and moving forward. And it is this driving emotion that ultimately makes Shilo's first novel so readable and so engaging. - Guardian
Shilo writes with a raw power, whether she is describing the pain of childbirth or the fear of the terrorist attacks ... so memorable and moving. - Jewish Chronicle
A masterpiece of Israeli literature
Shilo's debut novel is a bold, original and moving book, a true masterpiece - Die Welt
Shilo's achievement - and she appeared out of nowhere in the literary arena, at a relatively late age - is first and foremost linguistic, but also political. In this story there are no downtrodden, no victims, no pitiable wretches, just an Eastern family that has such a hard time that there simply has to be a happy ending. It appears that if you really know how to tell the story, those living on the periphery can sketch the center around themselves - Yediot Aharonot