Hagai Dagan

 

Born in 1964 in Kibbutz Ein HaMifratz, Hagai Dagan is an Israeli writer and scholar. Educated in Israel and Germany, he received a PhD in Jewish Thought and Philosophy from Tel-Aviv University. He is currently head of the Israeli Culture department at Sapir College, Israel.

 

Dagan has published seven novels, four non-fiction books, and a volume of poetry. His body of work is anchored by themes from Jewish history, myth, fantasy and demonology, and their links to contemporary Israeli life and identity. Dagan was awarded the Levi Eshkol Literary Award in 2007 and the Geffen Prize for Best Fantasy Book in 2013

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Title: Call of the North (Karelia)

MG/Crossover

Publisher: Petel Publishers

Year: 2023

 

Translation rights: World

Audio visual rights: World

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Karelia, a Husky, was born on a balcony in Ashdod then taken to a kibbutz near Gaza. Treated badly there, she finds herself under missile fire and flees across the border to Gaza. Karelia barely escapes from the new dangers there, and almost drowns at sea before she is washed up on Lesbos, and a Syrian refugee camp.

 

Karelia cannot find her rest anywhere because she is seeking a path to the north. Not the north of Europe, but the North of canine myth: infinite white spaces and ancient wolves, the home of her ancestors, the North of the fables she was told as a puppy.

 

On her quest, she is joined by a band of loyal friends: an Israeli boy addicted to historical novels, an orphaned Syrian girl, a Finnish teen who prefers ancient, forgotten myths to the reality of the present. All three have all turned their backs on the world, choosing to search instead for the lost realms and magical lands of childhood. In their different ways, all are searching for a place that they can call home.

 

Karelia is a canine story; it is also a story for children, older children and for young adults. It is a story of the Caracals of the sands of Gaza, a Hungarian horse, of forgotten Finnish goddesses of myth: and, most of all, of a dog searching for the North.

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Hagai Dagan: Fiction

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