Winner of the 2023 Paper Brigade Award for New Israeli Fiction

Haaretz Best Book of 2023

Longlisted for 2023 Sapir Prize

E-vrit Bestseller

An award-winning, thrillingly subversive novel about an Israeli woman who moves to America, takes up hunting, and is drawn into a world of predator, prey, and dark attraction

An Israeli woman relocates to America on assignment from her tech company. In an attempt to leave her past behind and adapt entirely to the new culture in which she finds herself, she joins her colleagues on a deer hunt, discovering a surprising acumen for the sport. She fires again and again, refining her skills with every shot. As she embarks on an affair with her hunting guide and colleague, David, she sinks deeper into hunting season, vacillating between predator and prey as the boundaries between man, woman, work, and nature begin to collapse. Hunting with David becomes the one stable aspect of her life until one day everything changes.

With a poet's eye and a hunter's aim, Tehila Hakimi's beguiling debut novel is a taut, twisty story about the everyday violence that haunts countries, and one woman's tenuous grasp on reality.

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Rights Sold:

France: Éditions Denoël; Romania: Editura Art; UK: Footnote Press; US: Penguin (world English)

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Film Option:

Yoav Gross Productions (Red Skies, Manayek, Carthago)

Reviews: 

“A fable becoming reality of a woman becoming herself: Tehila Hakimi’s Hunting in America just purely bangs.”—Joshua Cohen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE NETANYAHUS

“HUNTING IN AMERICA is chilling and thought provoking. Tehila Hakimi is a skillful hunter.”

– Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, author of WAKING LIONS and THE WOLF HUNT

“Utterly gripping and chilling in its razor-sharp precision, Hunting in America will leave you breathless.” —Ayelet Tsabari, author of SONGS FOR THE BROKENHEARTED and THE ART OF LEAVING

“A debut that stuns with originality and guile, Tehila Hakimi skillfully weaves a narrative that explores womanhood, the workplace, and the unsettling normalization of violence in both Israel and America. I was caught in the spell of the narrator’s obscure voice from the first paragraph.” —Dorit Rabinyan, author of ALL THE RIVERS and PERSIAN BRIDES

“Sexy, witty, and spare, like an unexpected stranger with whom you might be persuaded to leave a party. Except the party’s in middle America and involves guns.” —Elisa Albert, author of HUMAN BLUES and AFTERBIRTH

“Reading Tehila Hakimi’s stunning debut is a propulsive experience. My eyes moved seamlessly and fluidly across the blocks of text, going deeper into the narrator’s experience of being a newcomer in a strange yet familiar land. One of her new American colleagues teaches her to smile to appear more friendly while another instructs her how to kill a deer safely. And yet, as a reader, I wasn’t smiling and I certainly never felt safe. Like one of the bullets shot from the narrator’s rifle, Hunting in America whistles, soars, and eventually collides into a thrilling conclusion.״ —Amelia Morris, author of WILD CAT

“Hunting in America is an enigmatic novel, which I read in a few hours, but lingered in my mind long after the final page.” —Dror Mishani, author of THE MAN WHO WANTED TO KNOW EVERYTHING

"Tehila Hakimi delivers a concise, haunting novel about a woman who relocates from Israel to America for her corporate job, and amidst the mundanity and drudgery of her life, takes up an obsession with hunting. Addicted to the rush of her newfound hobby, lines begin to blur: what it means to be predator and what it means to be prey becomes nebulous and hazy, her day to day life loses its importance, and all the while her fixations narrow, focus, and take aim. Slim, serious, and searching, Hunting in America revolves around some major topics right now: the experience of our inter-country relations, gun usage in our country, and the vacuous void at the center of one’s quest for power and meaning in America." —LitHub

“Tehila Hakimi’s protagonist relocates to America and becomes obsessed with hunting deer in the snow. This is an impressive and aesthetic book, precise as an arrow.” —Haaretz 

“A beautiful, disturbing and thought-provoking book.” —Yedioth Ahronoth 

“Like its protagonist, the book is dark, calculated, unyielding…Hakimi manages to distill a sense of violence in the workspace, alongside the violation of nature—both cruelties being the cause for disaster.” —La’Isha Magazine

"For me, this was the rare, swift puzzle of a novel that came along and consumed me entirely while reading, and has lingered with me ever since. It feels so fresh in its sly commentary about womanhood, obligation (to a family, a company, and a country), US gun culture, and the distinct ways that violence is naturalized in Israel and America—all with that mesmerizing voice and suspenseful unfolding. It will be such an honor to publish HUNTING, here, in America, and to work with Tehila." —Camille LeBlanc, Penguin

"HUNTING IN AMERICA is a novel that is at once provocative, disturbing and aesthetically beautiful. There is no doubt that Tehila Hakimi will become one of the most important voices in Israeli literature. I am proud to contribute to making Tehila Hakimi's singular voice known in France."  —Talya Chaumont, Éditions Denoël