Yehoshua Hankin had two loves: love for his wife Olga, many years his senior, and a love for the land. The two competed with each other, but he never preferred one over the other. Displayed for the reader, against the backdrop of the atmosphere in the Land of Israel toward the close of the Ottoman period and into that of the British Mandate, is a broad slice of life spread over fifty years of the man dubbed by constituents as the "Redeemer of the Land," and of the figures who accompanied him.The characters, events, times, and places described in this historical novel are to a great extent a faithful representation of reality, and they are interwoven into a multi-faceted biography illuminating the period and forgotten actors in a new light.
Joining forces in writing this book were Irit Amit Cohen and Ruth Kark, who combined Irit Amit Cohen's literary work in the genre of the historical novel with Ruth Kark's long-term research endeavor on Yehoshua Hankin, which even encompassed oral documentation from his close associates.
Prof. Irit Amit Cohen of Bar-Ilan University is an author and scholar, who has written action and adventure fiction for children and teenagers, as well as historical novels for adolescents. She has published textbooks on rhetoric and theory of writing, teaching Hebrew as a foreign and second language, and techniques for teaching subjects taught in school curricula. In addition, she has written many articles and books on the historical geography of Palestine, the state of Israel and on the connections between preservation planning and development of cultural heritage assets and cultural landscapes.
Professor Ruth Kark of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has written many books and articles on the historical geography, cultural, and settlement, of Palestine and the State of Israel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The 27 books she wrote and edited deal with Palestine in its entirety, as well as, the Negev, Jerusalem, Jaffa, Sephardic entrepreneurial families, the American Christian Messianic settlement, consular activity, and "Redemption of the Land" in the Land of Israel.
