Years ago, Nell Zink took on the challenge of reading a novel by a friend, the Hebrew-language writer Avner Shats. Unable to make sense of his work, she resolved to rewrite it for him from scratch. Now her tongue-in-cheek homage is available for the first time, accompanied by a dazzling and imaginative novella that ingeniously explores questions of art, language, and life.

“Sailing Toward the Sunset by Avner Shats” is Zink’s faux translation of Shats’ 1998 novel Lashut el Ha-Shkiah (Sailing Toward the Sunset). A romantic thriller involving a Mossad agent, a mythical silkie, and fictionalized versions of characters from Shats’ life, including the author herself, the work incorporates a number of previously unpublished short stories, plus Zink’s heartrending memoir “My Memoirs.”

A fast-moving portrait of expat artists, authors, and academics on fellowships at a villa in Florence, “European Story for Avner Shats” centers on a trio of indelible characters: a German specialist in ancient lint, an Israeli writer in an extended midlife crisis, and a beautiful and fraudulent Russian performance artist.

Demonstrating the hallmarks of Zink’s unique talent, Private Novelist is an intimate look into this acclaimed novelist’s early fiction—touching, sociable, and uproariously funny.