Infiltration - Couverture souple

YOUNG ISRAELI ARMY conscripts with minor disabilities, such as heart murmurs and epilepsy, are sent to Training Base 4 for basic training. Some come from large cities, some from kibbutzim; some were born in Israel, some are new immigrants from Eastern Europe or Arab countries. Infiltration tells the story of one platoon’s experience, a group of soldiers who represent all Israelis during the early years of their nation.
Melabbes is determined to stay separate, self-contained from the rigid routines and power plays of military life. From his detached stance we observe the other members of the platoon: Avner, a reckless romantic whose mother worked for the families of the wealthier, Ashkenazi recruits known as “the Jerusalemites”; Alon, the proud and patriotic kibutznik; Miller, a German epileptic and survivor of the concentration camps; and Micky, a famous soccer player who only recently discovered he has a heart murmur. The platoon’s sadistic drill sergeant has found in the army a way to transform himself from a student ridiculed and ostracized into someone who can literally make or break lives.
Infiltration takes place sometime in the 1950s, but it is a universal story of loss of innocence, exposing the darker side of the military process of “making men out of boys.”

YEHOSHUA KENAZ lives in Tel Aviv, where he works as an editor for a publishing house. The author of several novels and a collection of stories, he won the following major Israeli literary awards for Infiltration: the Alterman Prize, the Newman Prize, the Agnon Prize, the Bialik Prize, and the Acum Prize.