Israel: Jewish state and national homeland to Jews the world over. But a fifth of its population is Arab, a people who feel themselves to be an inseparable part of the Arab nation, most of which is still technically at war with the State of Israel.

In the summer of 1991 David Grossman set out on a journey into the world of Arab citizens of his country. Sleeping on a Wire is an account of what he found. It is about men and women fighting to find a voice, to pick out the pulse of their own identity in a land that doesn't seem to be theirs. He has not written about open conflict. Rather it is a story of ferment beneath the surface, and an intensifying bitterness which can only exacerbate the troubles of the Middle East.