Yosef Haim Brenner |
| Yosef Haim Brenner (1881 - 1921; b. Novi Mlini, the Ukraine) received a religious education but as a young man joined the Bund, a Jewish socialist movement, and later became a Zionist. He published his first story in 1900.
At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war, after serving in the Russian army for three years, he escaped to London with the help of friends. There he worked as a typesetter and edited a Hebrew publication. He immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1909. Brenner initially worked as an agricultural laborer in Hadera but later taught Hebrew grammar and literature in high school. When the Jews of Jaffa and Tel Aviv were driven out by the Turkish authorities, he moved to Hadera, returning to Jaffa only after the British conquest. Essayist, critic, commentator, translator, novelist and poet, Brenner was the most prominent literary figure in Eretz Israel in his day, and in effect shifted the center of Hebrew literary activities away from Europe. Brenner, killed by Arab rioters in 1921, expounded views apparently paradoxical. An ardent Zionist who passionately encouraged immigration, he was an equally fierce critic of both Zionism and Jews. A scathingly honest pessimist by nature, his prose nonetheless professes a belief in artistic truth where all other faith has failed. In Brenner`s vision, life is comprised of never-ending hardship and disaster; it is nothing more than a struggle for existence in a world of darkness and illusion. His characters, skeptical and hesitant, flee into madness and death, and Judaism is portrayed as fading. |
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Books Published in Hebrew |
| In Winter (novel), Hashiloa, 1904 [Ba-Horef] |
| Around the Point (novel), Hashiloa, 1904 [Misaviv La-Nekudah] |
| Nerves (novella), Shalekhet, 1910 [Atzabim] |
| From Here and There (novel), Sifrut, 1911 [Mi-Kan U-Mi-Kan] |
| Breakdown and Bereavement (novel), Shtiebel, 1920 [Shchol Ve-Kishalon] |
| Collected Works (four volumes), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978-1985 [Ketavim] |
| Out of Distress (novella), Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2006 [Min Ha-Metzer]
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| In addition, Brenner also wrote and published several short stories |
Books in Translation |
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Breakdown and Bereavement English: London, Cornell Univ. Press, 1971; Philadelphia, JPS, 1971; London, The Toby Press, 2004 Chinese: Hefei, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 1998 Nerves English: In Eight Great Hebrew Short Novels, New York, New American Library, 1983 Spanish: In Ocho Obras Maestras de la Narrativa Hebrea, Barcelona, Riopiedras, 1989 French: Paris, lntertextes, 1989; Paris, Noel Blandin, 1991 Out of the Depths English: Colorado, Westview Press, 1992; New York/London, Toby Press, 2008 Around the Point Yiddish: Berlin, Yiddisher Literarisher Ferlag, 1923 In the Winter Yiddish: Warsaw, Literarisher Bleter, 1936 Last updated: 17.03.2009 |
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