Black Elephants

<p>An aspiring writer and reporter Karol Nielsen went trekking through the Peruvian Andes at the height of the Shining Path terror looking for adventure and a good story. She found Aviv an Israeli traveler fresh out of his mandatory military service--a war-weary veteran of the first intifada--dreaming about peace. <em>Black Elephants</em> follows this idealistic pair as they explore the Americas until Aviv inexorably drawn to his homeland asks Karol to come with him to Israel. There the couple's lovingly laid plans--for Aviv to attend university and for Karol to work on a kibbutz study Hebrew and get to know his family--are suddenly tested by the eruption of the first Gulf War. Nielsen's memoir paints a poignant and harrowing picture of love during wartime. Against a backdrop of bursting bombs and air-raid sirens gas masks and sealed rooms relationships are frayed and romance becomes a distant memory. This story so candidly and clearly told powerfully illustrates the terror loneliness and absurdity of war and its invisible casualties.</p><p></p><p>Karol Nielsen has contributed to <em>Smith Magazine's The Moment</em> anthology and other publications including the <em>New York Times</em> <em>New York Newsday</em> <em>Jane's Intelligence Review</em> <em>Guernica</em> <em>Lumina</em> and <em>Epiphany</em>-before she became nonfiction editor of the magazine. Excerpts from this memoir were selected as Notable Essays in <em>The Best American Essays</em>. Her poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. She teaches memoir writing at New York University.</p><p></p>