ITHL News

• Yaakov Shabtai, Past Perfect, Italian, l'ancora
• Eli Amir, Scapegoat, Turkish, Apollon
• Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Arabic, Yedioth Ahronoth
• Haim Be'er, The Pure Element of Time, Chinese, Shanghai Translation
• Eshkol Nevo, World Cup Wishes, German, dtv
• Yoram Kaniuk, Missing, Italian, l'ancora, pback
• Etgar Keret, Knellers Happy Campers, English (UK), Chatto & Windus
• Alona Kimhi, I Anastasia, Estonian, Loomingu
• Zeruya Shalev, Late Family, English, Toby Press
• Yehoshua Kenaz, Returning Lost Loves, Italian, Giuntina
• Zeruya Shalev, Husband and Wife, Vietnamese, Bach Viet
• Savyon Liebrecht, The Banality of Love (play), Italian, e/o
• Eshkol Nevo, World Cup Wishes, Italian, Neri Pozza
• Eli Amir, The Dove Flyer, English (UK), Peter Halban
• Alex Epstein, Blue Has No South, English (USA), Clockroot Bks
• Etgar Keret, Four Stories, English (USA), Syracuse University Press
• Alona Kimhi, Weeping Susannah, Italian, Ugo Guanda
• Mira Magen, Time Will Tell, French, Mercure de France
• Zeruya Shalev, Late Family, Spanish, Circulo de Lectores
• Eshkol Nevo, World Cup Wishes, French, Gallimard
• Nathan Zach, Selected Poetry, Chinese, Peoples Literature
• Shifra Horn, Four Mothers, Turkish, Apollon

* Etgar Keret has been honored in France with the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres - 2010.

6 books of Keret's stories and graphic novellas have been published in France. His new bestselling collection, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door will be published by Actes Sud.

* Natan Zach has been awarded the prestigious Napoli Prize, Italy, 2010 and the d'Aquila Prize, Italy, 2010. His latest collection of poems in Italian, translated by Ariel Rathaus was published in 2009 by Einaudi Editore.
Most recently, his Selected Poetry has been published in Chinese (People's Literature Publishing House), translated by Fu Hao.

* David Grossman will be awarded the prestigious Frankfurt Peace Prize at the Frankfurt Book Fair starting 3 October 2010.

* Poet and fiction-writer Almog Behar has been awarded the Bernstein Prize for Poetry, 2010
For his short story, "Shrinking"

* Poet Shin Shifra has been awarded the Emet Prize, 2010, for her translations from ancient Sumerian.
For her recent children's book, The Tales of Anzu the Great Eagle - three legends from ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq) - see our Children's Catalog 2010

* Leading playwright Joshua Sobol has been awarded the Israel Theater Prize for Lifetime Achievement, 2010.
His novel, Cut Throat Dog (Whiskey's Fine), will be published in English by Melville Books, N.J. in October 2010.

* Savyon Liebrecht has been selected Playwright of the Year, 2010, for The Banality of Love, about the relationship between Hannah Arendt and the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.
Her novel, The Women My Father Knew, has recently been published in English by Persea Books, New York.

* Tami Shem-Tov's moving book Letters from Nowhere has been nominated for the German Jugendbuch Prize 2010.

Yoram Kaniuk, 1948 - over 4 months on the bestseller list.

From the Press

If the prophets of the Old Testament had read Joyce, Kafka, M?rquez, Conrad and Gershom Scholem, listened to American jazz, seen Broadway musicals and heard Lenny Bruce, they might have sounded something like Kaniuk. - Author Nicole Krauss, Time Magazine

Kaniuk has written one of the most important stories about Israel's War of Independence... His voice is blunt, clear, loving and anguished. - Haaretz

If this isn't captivating prose, I don't know what is... A very powerful experience. What writing - pure bliss! - NRG Maariv

Kaniuk conveys the spirit of the time in a unique way - musical, wise, non-moralising, and he doesn't presume to speak for anyone but himself... In fact, Kaniuk wrote ahead of his time. - Ynet

One of the finest and most important books to be published this year... I read it with bated breath. It is rhythmic, wild and full of radical, dramatic, sometimes almost inconceivable events... and yet it has the merit of simplicity. - Achbar Hair

Etgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door, 70.000 copies sold in 3 months!!

"Etgar Keret has written several great books, but this is his greatest. These stories are the most funny, dark and poignant I've read in a long time. It's tempting to say they are his most Kafkaesque, but in fact they are his most Keretesque."
Author Jonathan Safran Foer

"Etgar Keret's newest collection is fantastic and moving and-as always with Keret-surprisingly and endearingly weird. It's a special Keret book.
Author Nathan Englander

From the Press

This book is yet another manifestation of Keret's magic, but more mature and interesting. - Haaretz

Once again, Keret proves himself to be the best short story writer in Israel. His worldwide reputation is well justified; some of the stories here are close to perfection. - NRG Maariv

Keret's angst is magic. But it is a darker, deeper kind of magic, like an abyss. Open the book, you won't be able to stop reading. - Yedioth Ahronoth

Literature at its best. Keret has a deep understanding of modern popular culture. - Ynet

And in Turkey, interest in Hebrew literature continues to grow. After the success of last year's event, Hebrew literature will be represented at this year's Tanpinar Literary Festival by Etgar Keret.

And to round off the picture - the latest books published or forthcoming in Turkish:

• Zeruya Shalev, Love Life, Dogan, 2001; 2009
• Etgar Keret, Gaza Blues, with Samir el-Youssef, Siren, 2009
• Alona Kimhi, Weeping Susannah, Sistem, 2009
• Michal Zamir, A Ship of Girls, Kavis Kitap, forthcoming
• Zeruya Shalev, Husband and Wife, Dogan, 2003; 2009
• Shifra Horn, The Fairest Among Women, 2010
• Eli Amir, Scapegoat, Apollon, 2010
• Zeruya Shalev, Late Family, Dogan, 2008
• Etgar Keret, The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God, Siren, forthcoming
• Shifra Horn, Four Mothers, Apollon, 2010

Atmosphere Libri, a dynamic young publishing house, has launched a new series of Israeli Women Writers. With wonderful enthusiasm, authors on their list already include:

• Orly Castel-Bloom, Textile
• Ronit Matalon, The Sound of Our Steps
• Judith Katzir, Dearest Anne
• Ruth Almog, Stranger in Paradise
• Mira Magen, Time Will Tell
• Nava Semel, And the Rat Laughed
• Esty G. Hayim, Something Good Will Happen Tomorrow

Also to be published: Shimon Adaf, Sunburnt Faces

Publisher's Motto
"Writers are useless except to make sense of things" (Ramon Eder, Ironia)

Ronny Someck, Algeria - Selected Poems,

now in Arabic. Translated by Salman Massalha, and published by Ibn Luqman Pub., (Monsoura, Egypt), 2010.

Algeria

If I had another daughter
I'd call her Algeria,
and you would doff your colonial hats to me
and call me "Abu Algeria."
In the morning, when she opened her chocolate eyes
I would say: "Now Africa is waking up,"
and she would caress the blonde on her sister's head
certain that she had rediscovered gold.
The grains on the seashore would be her sandbox
and in the footprints of the French who fled from there
she would hide the dates that dropped from the trees.
"Algeria," I would clasp the railing of the balcony and call to her:
"Algeria, come home, and see how I'm painting the eastern wall
with the brush of the Sun."

Translated by Vivian Eden

Napkin

Time
is as thin
as a napkin wiping away
crumbs of words
from under the lip.
Have you enjoyed yourself? it asks. Tell your friends.
You haven't? Tell us.
And we, like the mouth, are never satisfied
with the menu of the body
and love at night's end
is a chair reversed

Its legs in the air,
its head in clouds of floor.

Translated by Vivian Eden
Translation © Ronny Someck

Ronny Someck was born in Baghdad, Iraq. He teaches literature, holds writing workshops and works as a counselor with street gangs. Someck has published 10 books of poetry. He has also made a CD with musician Elliot Sharp in New York and held a joint exhibition "Nature's Factory" at the Israel Museum, with artist Benny Efrat. Among his many awards: the Efrat Prize (1999), the Amichai Prize for Poetry (Poetry (2005), the Wine Poetry Award (Struga, Macedonia, 2005) and the Hans Berghuis Poetry Prize (Holland, 2006). Collections of his poetry have been published abroad in 8 languages.

Israel Eliraz, Urgent Matters: Selected Poems 1980-2010,

recently published in Hebrew by Hakibbutz Hameuchad.

In Poetry We Are All Children of the East

In poetry we are all children of the East
we come with a basket and stand before it
as in front of a landlord who puts a dove inside
and we, down-to-earth people, take it out
and make tools and flutes and magic tricks
and wrap them with painted book scarves
afterward drinking wine from the middle of the middle third
of the barrel and the eye wants
to graze like a cow in the grass on the thinnest thing
that can be seen, on the edge of the field.
The sun comes up, it might shift
the night off course, it might not,
doesn't ask to grant meaning
or change to all this. To the man
who sits before me, a local, I say:
drop it, wanna drink?

Translated by Lisa Katz

In the Middle of the Field, a Field

3.

"What is beauty pushing aside
in order to be here?"

Out of the stone and the word
a tree grows and rises
by itself. A heavy

pomegranate darkens, falls
and utters a twitter -- out of that

peeks a little hand toward a running
child, who kneels, reading it.

Lots of swallows, if they don't have
(and they don't) something more urgent

lift up slowly
the golden morning curtain

"And the world at the height of a sole
is also granted the light"

Translated by Lisa Katz
Translation © ITHL

Israel Eliraz was born in Jerusalem. He co-founded the Kedem Teachers' College and was its director for many years. His plays and opera librettos have been staged both in Israel and abroad. Eliraz has published 20 collections of poetry, in French as well as Hebrew. He is published in France by Jos? Corti. Eliraz has received the ACUM Prize three times, the Ministry of Culture Award twice, and the Natan Alterman Prize for Poetry. He has also been awarded an Honorary Citation by the French Government.

Dahlia Ravikovitch

Requiem

The cantor was reading Psalms.
The trees whispered
like a flock of black priests.

We were not much taller than the gravestones
and we knew there would be
no resurrection in our day.

The ladder reached up from there
to the ranks of the holy and pure
who shine like sapphire
(most of them lay at our feet).

Our lives were like a grasshopper's
on the border of sun and shade.

But when the drowned girl passed through
all the chambers of the sea
we knew

it is the sea
that gives life to the rivers.

Translated by Chana Bloch
Translation © ITHL

Dahlia Ravikovitch, The Complete Poetry has just been published by Hakibbutz Hameuchad to commemorate five years since the poet's death, and immediately hit the bestseller list.

ALSO IN PRINT: Hovering at a Low Altitude: The Collected Poetry of Dahlia Ravikovitch, trans. by Chana Bloch & Chana Kronfeld (New York, Norton, 2009)

For a short interview with the translators »

* A feature film based on Yehoshua Kenazs major novel, Infiltration, directed by Dover Koshashvili, made its debut at the Jerusalem International Film Festival in July 2010.

Infiltration has been published in English US (Steerforth), French (Stock; Ed.10/18) and Spanish (Inedita, forthcoming)

* A feature film of Shulamit Lapids classic, Gai Oni (Valley of Strength) also made its successful debut at the Jerusalem International Film Festival in July 2010.
Gai OnOni has been published in French (Belfond; LFG), German (Rowohlt), and English (Toby Press).

* Allenby Street, by Gadi Taub, published to critical and popular acclaim in 2009, is slated to be a major TV series. Filming will start in spring 2011.

* A German production of My First Sony, by Benny Barbash, gave a number of guest performances at Tel Aviv's Cameri Theater.

* Barbash's most recent novel, Little Big Bang, is forthcoming in French (Zulma), Italian (Giuntina) and German (Berlin Verlag).

* Naomi, a feature film directed by Eitan Zur, and based on Edna Mazya's successful novel An X-Ray Burst, made its debut at the Venice Film Festival. International distribution by the French company Pyramide.

An X-Ray Burst, has been published in German (Kiepenheuer & Witsch), Italian: edizioni e/o), English, (Australia, Picador /Pan Macmillan, and USA, Europa), and French (Liana Levi)

Recently published:

• Tamar Verte-Zehavi, Aftershock (y/a), Italian, Sonda
• Galia Oz, Shakshuka Disappears(children), Spanish, Siruela
• Etgar Keret & Shira Gefen, A Moonless Night (children), French, Ed de la Balle
• Amalia Rosenblum (y/a), SWhere the Village Road Ends, Italian, Salani
• Uri Orlev, The Thing in the Dark (children), German, Beltz & Gelberg
• Uri Orlev, The Song of the Wales (y/a), English USA, Houghton Mifflin
• Uri Orlev, Granny Knits (children), Japanese, Iwanami
• Uri Orlev, The Song of the Wales (y/a), Japanese, Iwanami