Dinner at the Center of the Earth

Dinner at the Center of the Earth is a 2017 novel by Nathan Englander. A tortuous journey through the Middle East and Europe, it follows a cast of characters of different nationalities whose identities are challenged and compromised by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at different points in time. These include Shira, a member of a kibbutz just outside Gaza who lives through the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; “the General,” a prominent Israeli politician; Farid, a Berliner whose family lives in Gaza and who believes that their safety depends on a Palestinian victory; and Joshua, a Canadian man who uses the conflict for personal gain and betrays Farid’s trust. The plot alternates back and forth between 2002 and 2014, creating many snapshots or impressions that characterize the contentious situation in the Middle East and its ripple effect through the rest of the world. Englander’s novel has been praised for illuminating the conflict’s ideological complexity and entanglements of identity.

The novel begins in 2014. Shira waits out the conflict in a kibbutz just within Israel’s side of the Gaza Strip, trying to live life as normally as possible. A shadowy prisoner called “Z” languishes in a Negev Desert prison, supervised by a guard. They seem to have a close relationship though one is the other’s captor. At the same time, the General is in a coma in a hospital in Tel Aviv, with his mother praying at his bedside. The General’s mind, suspended in “Limbo,” is playing like a broken record the day when his son accidentally shot himself and died.

Next, the plot shifts to Paris, 2002. At a restaurant, Z meets a waitress and waiter, the former with whom he will fall in love, and the latter whom he distrusts, for unknown reasons. Z visits the restaurant repeatedly, yearning to see the waitress again, but never does. One evening, he sees her in a bookstore. They speak, then go to a cafe. They spend the night together in Z’s apartment. In Berlin the same year, Farid meets Joshua at a yacht club. They get dinner together and connect over their affinity for sailing. Soon after, they go sailing and strongly connect over the details of their lives.



Back in 2014, Prisoner Z sends a letter to the General pleading for his release, or at least for some form of recognition. He fears that he might die in jail with no surviving record of his life.

In 2002 Berlin, Farid and Joshua go sailing a second time. Joshua tells Farid that he is having problems with his business; Farid sympathizes but says he cannot help him. In Paris, the waitress discovers that Z is a spy. Then Farid is shown agreeing to help Joshua smuggle goods into Gaza.

In 2014, at the General’s hospital, his family and friends arrive expecting that he will die soon.



Back in 2002, Paris, the waitress lets the suspicious waiter into Z’s apartment building, tricked into thinking that he lives there. Z forces her to flee with him. In Berlin, Farid calls Joshua and rebukes him for knowingly involving him in a business deal that led to a massacre in Gaza. Joshua affirms that he did so, but expresses no regret.

In 2014, the General dies, while Prisoner Z remains in his cell. The guard tells Z that the General has died, insinuating that he had been comatose for the past eight years.

In 2002, Berlin, Joshua is dismissed from his job after admitting his responsibility in the Gaza disaster. Thereafter, Joshua becomes known as “Z.” Z travels to France, where he calls Farid and apologetically offers aid to the Palestinian forces. Z goes to his new boss’s office and asks permission to travel to the U.S., ostensibly because his mother is dying. In reality, Z is trying to escape. His boss allows him to go on the condition that he stops in Tel Aviv to finish a deal there. Z fears that he won’t escape, and consults with the waitress. The waitress offers to drive him to Italy to seek help from her wealthy father. He accepts her offer, and her father offers to smuggle him aboard a plane to the United States. Before a full day has passed, Israeli intelligence officers kidnap Z, taking him back to Israel, where his fate is to be determined by the General. The officers bring him to the Negev, and he stays in prison there until 2014.



The final section of the novel takes place entirely in 2014. Shira yearns to reunite with her lover, but they are divided by the Gaza border. They coordinate a plan to meet in a tunnel beneath the border, where they eat dinner together, while the war rages above. Prisoner Z despairs, now knowing that due to the General’s coma, he will likely die in prison without a decision being made on his case. For the holidays, Z’s guard gifts him a robe with the belt still attached, likely in a gesture of pity. The narrator implies that Z uses the belt to hang himself in the shower. In the tunnels beneath Gaza, a most unlikely place, Shira and her lover finally reunite. In these two final events, Dinner at the Center of the Earth suggests that human connection survives, taking on new forms, despite the harshness and injustice of the modern world.