Nurit Zarchi

Nurit Zarchi was born in Jerusalem in 1941 and grew up in Kibbutz Geva. She studied literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University. She has worked as a journalist and holds creative writing workshops for children and adults.

Zarchi has published more than 150 books in almost every genre: novels, short stories, poetry, collections of essays and children’s literature. She has received every major Israeli literary award from poetry to children’s literature, including the Prime Minister’s Prize twice (1980; 1991), the Ze’ev Prize (five times), four IBBY Honor Citations (1980; 1984; 1998; 2004), the Bialik Prize (1999), the Education Minister’s Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2005), the Yehuda Amichai Prize (2007), the Ramat Gan Prize (2010), the Lea Goldberg Prize (2011), the Landau Prize for Poetry (2013), the Devorah Omer Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2014), the Arik Einstein Prize (2015), the Israel Center for Educational Innovation Award for Lifetime Achievement (2016) and most recently the Israel Prize for Literature (2021).

Zarchi’s work has been translated into a dozen languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi.