Michal Govrin

Michal Govrin was born in Tel Aviv in 1950. She studied literature and theater at Tel Aviv University and received her Ph.D from the University of Paris. Govrin writes poetry and fiction, and is also a theater director, specializing in Jewish theater and ritual. She teaches drama at the Jerusalem School for Visual Theater, is academic chair of the theater department at Emunah College, and frequently lectures abroad. Govrin has been awarded the Margalit Prize for Theater Direction (1977), the Tel Aviv Foundation Award (1984), the Kugel Prize (1998) for The Name, a nomination for the Koret Jewish Book Award (USA, 1999) the Prime Minister`s Prize (1998) and the ACUM Prize for Snapshots (2003).

Books Published in Hebrew

That Very Hour (poetry), Sifriat Poalim, 1981 [Ota Sha`ah]

Hold On to the Sun (stories & legends), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1984 [Le`ehoz Ba-Shemesh]

That Night`s Seder (poetry), Ha-Bamah, 1989 [Seder ha-Laila Ha-ze]

Word`s Bodies (poetry), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1990 [Gufi Milim]

The Name (novel), Hakibbutz Hameuchad/Siman Kriah, 1995 [Ha-Shem]

The Making of the Sea, a Chronicle of Interpretation (poetry, fiction & art), Hare`el, Artist Book, 1998; Carmel, 2000 [Ma`aseh Ha-Yam, Chronikat Perush]

Snapshots (novel), Am Oved, 2002 [Hevzekim]

We Were as Dreamers (autobiography), Carmel, 2005 [Hainu Ke-Cholmin]

Books in Translation

The Name
English: New York, Riverhead Books, 1998; pback: 1999

Body of Prayer, with Jacques Derrida and David Shapiro (essay)
English: New York, The Cooper Union School of Architecture, 2001

Snapshots
English: New York, Riverhead Books, 2007
French: Paris, Sabine Wespieser, 2008

Hold On to the Sun
English: New York, The Feminist Press, forthcoming

Individual stories, poems and essays have been published in: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Hungarian, Croatian

Last updated: 3.1.2010