David Shahar, a great master of describing human passions that arise not just somewhere, but in Jerusalem. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is an almost literal paraphrase of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” - an interweaving of destinies, love, betrayals and disappointments, the beginning of which is in Jerusalem of the 30s, Palestine, the period of the British Mandate, the unusual time between two world wars. Artists, poets, doctors, diplomats - now they would say “party”, then - “bohemian”. The pages of the novel are permeated with a special, Levantine eroticism. This may be why it is so popular in France, where the novel has received a number of prestigious literary awards and is included in the list of the most popular translated literary works.