''Lazaretto'' is a

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

written by the

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

i author Shay K. Azoulay, published in 2019 by

Pardes Publishing Pardes Publishing is an independent Israeli publishing house founded by David Gottesmann in 2000 and located in the city of Haifa, Israel. Pardes publishes fiction, non-fiction and poetry in Hebrew, Arabic and English. Notable writers include Ta ...

. Inspired by

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...

's '' The Plague'', the novel takes place in the near future, where the city of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

is cut off from the rest of

and its residents are forced to fend for themselves. A review in ''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...

'' described the novel as “an ambitious, high-tension novel, seeped in paranoia... ''Lazaretto'' is a disturbing and stirring

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

which haunted me while I was reading it and even after I'd finished.” The novel was also named "Book of the Year" by '' LaIsha'' magazine and dubbed "the novel that predicted the

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

""''Lazaretto'' - The Novel that Predicted the Pandemic" Maya Levin, ''LaIsha'', p. 51, 14 September 2020.

References

External links

Lazaretto
- at The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.
First chapter
of ''Lazaretto'' 21st-century Israeli novels 2019 novels Novels set in Israel {{2010s-sf-novel-stub