Five Seasons

by A B Yehoshua

Published 15 May 1989

In the autumn, Molkho's wife dies. His years of loving care have ended and his newfound freedom proves unlike the one he had imagined. It is uneasy, filled with the erotic fantasies of a man who must fall in love, but whose longing for meaningful relationships is held hostage by the spirit of his wife.

Winter sees him in Berlin in a comic encounter with a legal adviser from his office in Haifa. Spring takes him to the Galilee and an impossible infatuation. Jerusalem in the summer brings another man's wife and an extraordinary request. And the following autumn there is Nina whose yearning for her Russian home brings Molkho back to life.

'In this finely observed and oddly moving comic novel?Yehoshua makes us feel [Molkho's] humanity - and deftly wins him our sympathy.' Kirkus


Ironic, understated, masterly prose is the hallmark of A B. Yehoshua's work. The ten stories collected here are representative of almost thirty years in his outstanding career. Some of his best-loved stories are included. "Three Days and a Child" is a chilling look at how a small child becomes the instrument of vengeance against his mother; "The Yatir Evening Express" tells the tragic story of remote mountain villagers who conspire to derail a train in order to have some contact with the outside world; and in the moving title story, an aging poet cannot write as the times demand, but his mentally handicapped son can. These remarkably poignant tales will touch the reader as only the best fiction can.