Late Blossoms

★★★★★ “Merav Fima’s splendid debut is an homage to the magic of the city of Jerusalem, interlinked through the lives and art of the women who shaped Israel’s cultural heritage.” Zsolt Alapi, author of My Brother’s Keeper

Ten women.
All of them migrants.
All of them artists.
A singular location: Jerusalem.

Anna Ticho is a seasoned Viennese hostess who longs to start painting again, though the desolation of Jerusalem offers little inspiration. Even though Rachel is gaining a reputation as the national poetess, she is ostracized by her colleagues due to her illness. Young Zelda struggles to reconcile her artistic aspirations with her family's religious observance. Else is persecuted by the Nazis as a "degenerate artist," only to be ridiculed by her peers once she escapes to Jerusalem.

Inspired by historical figures, these are among the characters who reappear in this collection of linked short stories. Meeting at Ticho House to share their creative work and discuss the difficulties of writing and painting in a new and unfamiliar environment, language, and culture, these women shaped the emerging State of Israel’s literary, artistic, cultural, and intellectual scenes.

Late Blossoms captures a vivid image of Jerusalem, past and present, through the eyes of its diverse inhabitants, specifically historical and contemporary migrant women artists, while exploring such universal challenges as childlessness and unrequited love, as well as discrimination by the patriarchal literary and artistic establishments of their time.