A Woman in Jerusalem by A.B. Yehoshua

 In this unusual story, a woman in Jerusalem has died alone, her body unclaimed.  The only clue to her identity, is a pay slip from the bakery where she once worked.  She is eventually identified as Yulia Ragayev (the only person ever actually named in the story) who emigrated not long ago with a long lost boyfriend.  The human resources manager from the bakery is charged with figuring out what to do with the body.  He is a middle aged man with a failing marriage and little joy in his life.  This mundane task becomes an epic journey as he tilts at bureaucratic windmills in an effort to take Yulia back to her home in a dismal frozen part of Soviet Russia.  He meets many characters along the way, none are named but each represent a life experience to be reckoned with.  It is a short book (237 pages) that reads almost like a long parable for what life requires of us to do our best, to maintain our humanity, to define who we are.