I read it years ago in the original Hebrew. Ever since I have been wondering whether it has been translated into English and whether Sami Michael will ever get a Nobel prize... I realize now that it has been translated. I recommend it to readers who have have enjoyed Mann, Garcia, Mahfouz, Singer and some of the other modern classical masters. "Victoria" is the touching and intimate story of several generations of a Jewish family in Iraq which emigrated to Israel. A fascinating masterpiece by my favorite contemporaneous Israeli author.

Sami Michael weaves the intricate and complex plot which is Refuge by introducing the reader to a large number of characters, all of whom have very complex identities. He tells of the Israeli Jew who was born in Iraq, and the Arab with Israeli citizenship who visits his cousins in a Palestinian refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. The multiple layers of each of the numerous characters we meet succeed in opening the readers' eyes to the layers of complexity which are Israeli society.

This book contains a collection of articles, journal entries and essays about a mapping project in the Sami lands of the Kola peninsula. As I read the book flaps and prefaces, I kept wondering, "What is this book about?". And then I kept wondering as I got lost in the rhetoric of the first chapter. And I said, "Well, surely the topic of the book and the project that it seems to be about will become clear soon." As I read the remaining chapters, I was able to put the pieces together. It seems that the book is one product of a Canadian-Sami joint research project to map Sami resources that was completed in about 1998. One of the main intentions of the project seems to be to provide the Sami with maps that they could use to bolster their claims for land usage rights in Russia.

This book is rather a mixed bag of goodies. The main message is not very clearly stated, yet, the information contained in various parts of the book is extremely valuable, and the stories are quite interesting and illuminating. Despite the slimness of the volume, the essays and articles still manage to contain a good deal of historical and ethnographical information about the Sami, as well as documentation about who worked on this particular project and how. The journal entries provide a rare view into living conditions in small villages of Northern Russia in the mid-90s, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The book is filled with photographs of modern Sami landscapes, juxtaposed with color reproductions of 18th century prints by Leems. The maps, which were the reason for the project, are included in an envelope in the back, and are the main treasure of the book.