While good biogra­phies and his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives pro­vide read­ers with a sol­id sense of a per­son or place, unan­swered ques­tions often remain. Leave it to curi­ous and imag­i­na­tive writ­ers of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion to fill in the gaps with pos­si­bil­i­ties. In Late Blos­soms, an evoca­tive col­lec­tion of linked short sto­ries, Mer­av Fima exam­ines the lives of sev­er­al Jew­ish female writ­ers and visu­al artists who migrat­ed to Jerusalem from Europe dur­ing the mid-twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. Each sto­ry cen­ters a dif­fer­ent woman, and while we learn about the artists’ back­grounds and con­tri­bu­tions, thanks to Fima’s thor­ough research, read­ers are also privy to a much rich­er explo­ration of these his­tor­i­cal fig­ures so impor­tant to the new­ly estab­lished State of Israel and its artis­tic and cul­tur­al devel­op­ment. ​“I have tak­en poet­ic license in con­struct­ing the encoun­ters between them,” Fima writes of her approach to her char­ac­ters, ​“in order to explore their most pro­found emo­tions and experiences.”

Explore char­ac­ters’ emo­tions and expe­ri­ences is exact­ly what Fima does, with Ticho House pro­vid­ing the link. Begin­ning in 1924, Anna and Albert Ticho host­ed an ongo­ing lit­er­ary salon in their home, invit­ing guests from Jerusalem’s artis­tic, aca­d­e­m­ic, and intel­lec­tu­al com­mu­ni­ties. The tit­u­lar sto­ry ​“Late Blos­soms” intro­duces read­ers to painter Anne Ticho and to the deep mean­ing of cre­at­ing art in the city. Hav­ing migrat­ed from Vien­na, Anne strug­gles to plant artis­tic roots in what she expe­ri­ences as a bar­ren land­scape. A coin engraved with the image of olive branch­es proves to be the inspi­ra­tion she need­ed. Anne’s own gar­den has olive trees, and she begins to fill her can­vas­es with their images: ​“This was her first time sign­ing in Hebrew on can­vas. Here I am, a Jew­ish artist, paint­ing in the holi­est of cities.” There is some­thing holy about cre­at­ing art in Jerusalem — and about leav­ing coun­tries of oppres­sion and return­ing to an ancient homeland. 

The dis­cus­sions at the Ticho House salon were spir­it­ed and vibrant, and Fima cap­tures the con­flicts that arose amongst those who came to build lives in the fledg­ling nation. Else Lasker-Schuler was a cel­e­brat­ed visu­al artist and poet in her native Ger­many, but once the Nazis came to pow­er, she becomes known as a ​“degen­er­ate artist.” After escap­ing to Jerusalem, Else looks for­ward to attend­ing the Ticho salon. Once there, though, she is crit­i­cized for writ­ing in her native tongue. 

Author Nel­ly Sachs expe­ri­ences the same ridicule at the salon: ​“You con­tin­ue to give voice to the vic­tims rather than to our heroes, who estab­lished the State … How can you con­tin­ue writ­ing in Ger­man after the Ger­mans destroyed our peo­ple?” chas­tis­es S. Y. Agnon, who, along with Sachs, was pre­vi­ous­ly award­ed a Nobel Prize. Through such imag­ined exchanges, Fima illus­trates how cul­tur­al clash­es played them­selves out among the artists of the time. Those who chose not to erase their pasts were often den­i­grat­ed; as women, liv­ing and work­ing in patri­ar­chal lit­er­ary and art worlds, the char­ac­ters faced addi­tion­al hurdles. 

Fima’s writ­ing is love­ly and lyri­cal. Late Blos­soms is not only a trib­ute to the women whose artis­tic lega­cy con­tin­ues to inform cre­atives liv­ing in Israel today; it is also a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of art to con­nect and heal people.