a word; mischievous as it is it appears in English, it appears in Arabic, but refuses to come in Hebrew. To some extent I made up my Hebrew. Unquestionably, the influence of Arabic is dominant, my syntax is almost Arabic." –Sami Michael, Unbounded Ideas "When Victoria came out in Cairo, in the preface it was written that 'this is an Arabic novel written in Hebrew'. I took it as a compliment." He wrote his first novel in Arabic, which won a prize awarded by the Communist Party. On leaving the party, he ceded publication of the book. Throwing the handwritten copy away, Unbounded Ideas. "In his study, amongst books in Hebrew, Arabic and English – novels, poetry, politics, history and science – lies on the table a student's folder and inside it neatly arranged pages of his next novel – all handwritten in exemplary fashion on white paper; rows of sentences in perfectly straight lines, that later he will cross out again and again until he decides that this is it, it can be typed. Not by himself. 'At my age you want me to write on a computer? I belong to the generation that does not press buttons, but rather turn them,' he explains, 'I could not do otherwise. I need the contact of the pen where the words flow from the hand on to the page.'" Michael has fixed hours for writing: twice a day – morning and afternoon. While writing, he disconnects from everything. He does not have a telephone in his study, where he writes. He insists on finishing the novel in the same room in which he started it. He started to write Victoria in his garden shed in Ma'alot, and when he sold the house and moved back to Haifa, he had not complete his book, he asked the buyer to allow him to continue living there until he finished writing Victoria – paying full rent of course. During his writing he does not show it, not even a chapter to anyone. Nor does he consult with anyone. "A good writer in known not only in by good writing but also in his ability to throw away without mercy, to erase and to leave a pure text." "At the end of the process – approximately three years from the beginning of a book, it will be typed. He does not show his unfinished handwriting,