DAWN

A spare, spectral short novel follows last year's Night and fills in the hours before dawn spent by Elisha, 18, designated to kill an Englishman- in Palestine- at the time when reprisals were ordered: for the hanging of every Jewish fighter, there was to be the execution of an Englishman. Elisha, during this "night of many faces", spends much of it in the past, through the years of "searching and suffering" at Auschwitz which preceded his persuasion to become a terrorist in the Movement. Finally, he goes down to the cell where the Englishman waits- calmly-pityingly- for the boy who will never be able to reconcile what he has been asked to do with his private faith, and who only later will realize that the fear he faces is the fear of what he has become- a killer.... Perhaps not a popular form- or theme, but it leaves an inevitable impress.