Yirmi Pinkus

Yirmi Pinkus (b. 1966) is an illustrator, cartoonist, and novelist. His writing is distinguished by a caricaturist’s sharp eye for human eccentricities and absurdities, his talent for capturing and amplifying his characters’ quirks and idiosyncrasies, and his ability to fuse irony with nostalgia to vividly evoke both historical and local settings.

Pinkus’s debut novel, Professor Fabrikant’s Historical Cabaret (2008), follows a Yiddish theater troupe traveling across Eastern Europe in the 1930s. While his subsequent works, including Bachelors and Widows (2018) and the satirical novel The Greedy Ones (2021), shift away from the landscapes of Eastern Europe, they retain the theatrical Yiddishkeit sensibilities and humor that define his debut.
Whether chronicling two Tel Avivian sisters’ dream of gathering their family for a weeklong vacation in the Austrian town of Seefeld (Petty Business, 2012) or delving into the minor intrigues of tenants in an old apartment building or the bohemian circle surrounding a friend who stubbornly refuses to die, Pinkus uses these seemingly mundane scenarios as a stage for his signature blend of absurdity and melodrama, where petty grievances and desires ballon into grand, almost operatic conflicts.

A hallmark of Pinkus’s style is his deliberate use of archaic, slightly pompous language, which highlights the tension between the trivial and the seemingly monumental in his characters’ lives. His protagonists, often caricatures of the petty bourgeoisie, perceive their small disagreements and frustrations as matters of immense significance, infusing their dramas with a tragicomic gravity. Through his richly comic portraits, Pinkus invites readers into a communal experience akin to eavesdropping on juicy, exaggerated gossip. We laugh at the eccentricities, obsessions, and outlandish longings of people who initially seem unremarkable or absurd. Yet, as the shtetl-like intimacy of his narratives unfolds, we inevitably come to see ourselves reflected in the lives of these characters.

Photography: Tommy Harpaz