The authors (note plural) of this collection of short stories have led long and sometimes turbulent lives . Both came as young children to what was at the time British-ruled Palestine in the 1930s. Chance brought them together in high school in Tel-Aviv in 1942, and they have been together ever since, through thick and thin, in what they consider the most enduring union of two souls they know. The stories they recount range from the humorous, ironic, through near-tragic, A journalist who interviewed the couple on Valentine's Day in 2000 called them "A Republic of Two".(which is one of the chapters)