His parents left Slovakia for Israel in 1949. They lived in a moshav where Hungarian was the language. Housing was spartan conditions rough - a thin strip of land, one cow, a lone tree. School was primitive, fun what children could make for themselves between study and agricultural work. Locusts, water shortages and fedayeen came; military service, university. He meets a girl from the diaspora, marries, has children, travels, works. This is a tale of an individual growing up at the same time as his country, told from the inside, without polemic or artifice. Past disaster and future hopes frame a figure in a landscape. The self-portrait is etched with simplicity and a fine eye for salient detail.CHAIM KLEIN is married to the journalist and author Emma Klein, née Solomon, and lives mainly in London. They have two sons and two grandsons. English is his third working language. This is his first book.