When I Lived in Modern Times

First edition. 8vo. Pp. [viii], 260, [1]. Black cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; lemon-yellow endpapers.

Signed by Author to title-page.

Grant's second novel and fourth book. Winner of the 2000 Orange Prize for Fiction, beating the odds-on favourite Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Set at the juncture of the birth of the State of Israel, as a twenty-year-old London lass sets sail for Palestine. Accusations of plagiarism against the author – quotes from letters, diaries and memoirs unearthed by A. J. Sherman in his book Mandate Days, British Lives in Palestine 1918–1948 – were rejected by the Orange Prize jury, as the excerpts had been referenced, and their use agreed by his publisher.

"An unsentimental, iconoclastic coming-of-age story of both a country – Israel – and a young immigrant, [which] ... provides an unforgettable glimpse of a time and place rarely observed from an unsparing point of view." –Publishers Weekly (starred review).