Terror Attack Survivor and Best-Selling Author

The Fellowship  |  December 9, 2020

Zeruya Shalev is a best-selling Israeli author and a terrorist attack survivor. Shalev was born on a kibbutz in northern Israel in 1959, and today she lives in Jerusalem.

Shalev received her master’s degree in Bible studies and works as a literary editor at Keshet publishing house. She published her first novel, Husband and Wife, in 2001, and has published eight more (five novels, a book of poetry, and two children’s books) in the years since, all of which have received critical acclaim in Israel and abroad.

In January 2004,as Shalev returned from dropping her young child off at kindergarten, she received serious wounds when a terrorist blew up a city bus as she passed by. It took her four months to recover from her injuries. The event transformed her life, and the pain she experienced during the attack and afterwards inspired her acclaimed novel, Pain, which one publication said gave her the “role as Israel’s literary therapist.”

Zeruya Shalev is one of the only authors in Israel who makes a living entirely off her writing. Her books have been translated into 21 different languages, and she has won many awards for her work, including the 2019 Jan Michalski Prize for Pain.