Eli Amir

Eli Amir was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1937, and arrived in Israel with his family in 1950. He studied Middle Eastern history and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Amir has served as adviser on Arab affairs to the Prime Minister and envoy for the Ministry of Absorption to the USA. Since 1984, he has been director-general of the youth immigration department at the Jewish Agency.
Amir is well-known in Israel for his involvement with new immigrants and his activity in Palestinian-Jewish relations. His first novel, Scapegoat, has been adapted as a play and a TV series, and a film based on his second novel, Farewell, Baghdad, was released in 2014. Amir has been awarded Youth Immigration's Jubilee Prize (1983), the Jewish Literature Prize (Mexico, 1985), the Ahi Award (1994), Am Oved's Jubilee Prize (1994), the Yigal Alon Prize for Outstanding Service to Society (1997), the Book Publishers Association's Platinum Prize three times (1998; 2009; 2011) and the Prime Minister's Prize (2002). He received an Honorary Doctorate from Tel Aviv University in 2008. He is also winner of the Brenner Prize for Literature 2019 for his novel Bicycle Boy.