Uncle Peretz Takes Off

The stories present a gallery of characters in Tel Aviv of the 1940s, including Uncle Shmuel who tries to make his fortune as a poulterer, the nude model Tamara Bell, and Albert Weiss-Fink, who dreams of bringing a traveling circus to Palestine.

The thirteen stories which make up the first edition of the collection were all written between 1966 and 1971, when Yaakov Shabtai was in his thirties, and still mostly focused on his work as a playwright.

An expanded edition, including seven previously unpublished stories from Shabtai's estate, was published posthumously in 1985.

Shabtai paid close attention to the overall structure of the collection, believing that it also reflected the internal ideas of the stories.

Though at first the book included additional stories, such as "The Gospel according to Lucas," Shabtai decided to leave them out since they did not fit the overall structure.