Lavie Tidhar

Lavie Tidhar (born 1976 in Afula and raised on Kibbutz Dalia, living primarily in London since 2013) – an idiosyncratic writer who works across multiple genres. Tidhar is known for his “genre-bending” style, often blending elements of science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and crime fiction. This means his works, even those primarily categorized otherwise, often contain strong mystery or thriller components. While he debuted as a Hebrew poet in 1998 with She’eriot Me’elohim (Remnants of God), he adopted English as his primary creative language after moving to South Africa as a teenager. Some of his novels are set in Israel, others are set in Europe, England and elsewhere. His versatility makes classifying him among Israeli writers somewhat arbitrary, but so would calling him a U.K. or “international” writer. Brief summaries of relevant books:

Central Station: Set in a futuristic Tel Aviv built around a spaceport, featuring characters like “robotniks” (cyborg war veterans) and exploring diverse Tel Aviv subcultures.

A Man Lies Dreaming: Combines a narrative about a Jewish pulp writer in Auschwitz with an alternative history dream where Hitler is a private investigator in 1930s London. While a work of alternate history/speculative fiction, it heavily employs the tropes and structure of a noir detective novel.

The Tel Aviv Dossier: A surreal apocalypse novel co-authored with Nir Yaniv, set entirely within a collapsing Tel Aviv.

Unholy Land: An alternative history novel where the Jewish state was established in East Africa (the “Uganda Scheme”) instead of Palestine.

Maror is a work of political crime fiction, or “Israeli noir”, that starts with a bombing and follows a scummy, deadbeat cop as he unravels a case involving organized crime. It’s a complex, multi-perspective story where, according to Tidhar, “all the events in the book are true” in inspiration.

Adama is the second book in the series. It continues the multi-generational crime saga set against the backdrop of Israeli history.

Six Lives (2024) is another standalone literary/historical fiction work from Tidhar, also part of the general crime/literary oeuvre.

HebrewPunk: A collection of short stories that re-imagines classic horror tropes (vampires, werewolves) through the lens of Jewish mythology and folklore.

Golgotha: Part of the Maror trilogy, set in Ottoman Palestine and the final days of the British Mandate, involving a search for Second Temple treasures. .

No One Hears the Last Shot (2025): This is a collection of ten crime and noir short stories, gathering some of Tidhar’s best work in the genre. [Google/AI]

Tidhar, Lavie & Nir Yaniv, (The Tel Aviv Dossier [pb, Chizine Publications, 2009] 978-0980941043

Tidhar, Lavie, (Central Station [pb, Tachyon Publications, 2016] 978-1616962142

Tidhar, Lavie, (A Man Lies Dreaming [hc, Melville House, 2016] 978-1612195049 [pb, Head of Zeus, 2021] 978-1801100632

Tidhar, Lavie, (Unholy Land [pb, Tachyon Publications, 2018] 978-1616963040

Tidhar, Lavie, (HebrewPunk [pb, Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., 2023] 978-1625676252

Tidhar, Lavie, (Maror [pb, Bloomsbury, written originally in English – as are most of his books, 2023] 978-1838931377

Tidhar, Lavie, (Adama [hc, Head of Zeus - Apollo, 2024] 978-1804543467 [pb, Apollo, 2024] 978-1804543481

Tidhar, Lavie, (Six Lives [hc, Apollo, 2024] 978-1804543511 [pb, Apollo, 2025] 978-1804543535

Tidhar, Lavie, (Golgotha [hc, Apollo, 2025] 978-1804543566

Tidhar, Lavie, (No One Hears the Last Shot [hc, PS Publications, 2025] 978-1803944975