75 Years of Israel: Two stories and four fates, closely intertwined. 1947/48: Fifteen-year-old Tessa, a Jewish girl and half-orphan, arrives in Jerusalem and meets Mo, an Arab boy who lost his father in a terrorist attack. A tentative friendship develops between them, but they lose touch in the turmoil of the state's founding. 2023: Eighteen-year-old Anat has just begun her military service and meets Karim, a young Palestinian man, after a training exercise in the West Bank. Initially, both are paralyzed with fear. But then they begin to talk and discover they have more in common than they had imagined. In her debut novel, renowned journalist Anja Reumschüssel interweaves four lives across two timelines. She tells the story of the Middle East conflict from the beginnings of the State of Israel to the present day, skillfully combining historical facts with the personal stories of her characters. Without taking sides or being preachy, Reumschüssel conveys the background and complexity of a seemingly unsolvable conflict in an accessible way. An impressive story that illustrates and explains the spiral of violence and its consequences for young people and adults. Nominated twice for the German Youth Literature Prize 2024.