For more than a decade, Ruth Margalit has been chronicling life in contemporary Israel for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine as the country has embraced right-wing extremism under Benjamin Netanyahu. Here she collects eleven of her profiles of wide-ranging figures from across society, returning to consider and update them from her current reality as a writer and mother living in Tel Aviv at a time of war.

Richly reported and animated by a novelist's eye for detail and drama, Margalit's writing is distinguished by its political acuity and narrative sweep. Kaleidoscopic in scope and poignant in its portrait of a country in turmoil, In the Belly of the Whale traces an unforgettable journey through present-day Israel, illuminating realities that can seem inscrutable even to the keenest observers.