 In his essay, “The Desire to be Gisella,” Grossman ponders the root of our fear of the “other” in ourselves and in those we love, and he thinks of authorship as a mad rebellion against this fear. Text David Grossman, “The Desire to be Gisella.” Writing in the Dark, Essays on Politics and Literature. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. 

Israel in Translation

David Grossman’s “The Desire to Be Gisella”

This week, Marcela takes a step back from the literature itself to look at the language of the words we use. The idea of the podcast, Israel in Translation, is that the works discussed were written originally in a language other than English—indeed, in the writer’s native language. But one of the realities of our age—or rather—one of the realities of literature—is that often poets and writers do not write in their first language. Or, if they do, this first language is not the language of the culture in which they find themselves. Marcela revisits the Granta Hebrew issue of the Ilanot Review to talk about Dory Manor’s The Language Beneath the Skin: A Meditation on Poetry and Mother Tongues.   Text Dory Manor. “The Language Beneath the Skin: A Meditation on Poetry and Mother Tongues” translated by Mitch Ginsburg. The Ilanot Review.

Dory Manor’s “The Language Beneath the Skin”

In 2014, historian Fania Salzberger Oz, and her father, the late writer Amos Oz, paired up to write a book which is “a nonfiction, speculative, raw, and occasionally playful attempt to say something a bit new on a topic of immense pedigree... the relationship of Jews with words.”

Jews and Words

Set in a rural village prior to the creation of the state of Israel, The Blue Mountain describes a community of eastern European immigrants as they pioneer life in a new land. Narrated by Baruch, a grandson of one of the founding fathers of the village, the novel offers not only a fascinating account of the hardships experienced by the Jewish pioneers, but is also extremely funny and imaginative. It is arranged as a series of vignettes, narrated by Baruch, a mortician, who reflects on the many people he has buried in a remote village. Text The Blue Mountain. By Meir shalev. Translated by Hillel Halkin. Cannongate Books, 2001.

Meir Shalev’s “The Blue Mountain”

On this episode, Marcela features the poems of a fascinating writer whose pen name was Avot Yeshurun. He published his first book of poems in 1942, and his last book appeared in 1992, on the day before he died. Text “Memories are a House” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Leon Weiseltier, Poetry Magazine “The Son of the Wall” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Leon Weiseltier, Poetry Magazine “The Collection” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Harold Schimel, Poetry International Rotterdam “A Day Shall Come” by Avot Yeshurun, translated by A. Z. Foreman in Poems Found in Translation

The Poetry of Avot Yeshurun

Marcela shares the second installment of a three-part podcast on Ayalet Tsabari’s important and beautiful memoir, The Art of Leaving. Although it was written in English, Tsabari’s native language is Hebrew. This episode gives us a glimpse of Israelis from Yemen, whose stories are so rarely told. Text Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving. Harper Collins, 2019.

Ayelet Tsabari’s “Savta”

On this episode, Marcela highlights The Lover, the first novel by A. B. Yehoshua, which he wrote in 1977. Yehoshua has been called the Israeli Faulkner, perhaps because of this novel. It is narrated from the point of view of each of its six main characters. Text The Lover by A. B. Yehoshua. Translated by Philip Simpson. Doubleday & Co., 1978. https://tlv1.fm/arts-culture/2015/07/22/a-b-yehoshuas-green-seas-and-yellow-continents/ https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2020/08/12/the-tunnel/

A. B. Yehoshua’s “The Lover”

Meir Shalev has been featured on two previous episodes. Four Meals is his third of eight novels. He’s also published 7 works of nonfiction and 13 children’s books. Four Meals is the story of Zayde, his enigmatic mother Judith, and her three lovers. When Judith arrives in a small, rural village in Palestine in the early 1930s, three men compete for her. Globerman, the cunning, coarse cattle dealer who loves women, money, and flesh Jacob, owner of hundreds of canaries and host to the four meals which lends the book its narrative structure, and Moshe, a widowed farmer, who gives Zayde his home. During the four meals, which take place over several decades, Zayde slowly comes to understand why these three men consider him their son and why all three participate in raising him. Text Four Meals, by Meir Shalev. Translated by Barbara Harshav, 2000. https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2020/07/29/meir-shalevs-my-wild-garden/ https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2015/06/03/my-russian-grandmother-and-her-american-vacuum-cleaner-israel-in-translation/

Meir Shalev’s “Four Meals”

On this episode, Marcela revisits Batya Gur, who introduced the murder mystery into Hebrew literature. Gur’s highbrow mysteries are often set in closed communities that mirror issues in the greater Israeli society. You can hear a previous podcast on her life and literary influence, as well as an excerpt from, Murder in Jerusalem, by following the link below. Text Murder on a Kibbutz. A communal Case. by Batya Gur. Translated by Dalya Bilu. Harper Perennial, 1994. Previous Episode on Batya Gur https://tlv1.fm/arts-culture/2014/10/29/the-israeli-detective-novel-israel-in-translation/

Batya Gur’s “Murder on a Kibbutz”

 This book catapulted Ari Shavit into the international spotlight. The book was a New York Times best seller and listed by the Times in its “100 Notable Books of 2013.” The Economist named it as one of the best books of 2013 and it received the Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award in History from the Jewish Book Council. It also won the Natan Book Award. Text My Promised Land, by Ari Shavit. Spiegel & Grau, 2013. 

Ari Shavit’s “My Promised Land”

On this episode, Marcela reads an excerpt from Yaniv Iczkovits’s novel The Slaughterman’s Daughter: The Avenging of Mende Speismann by the Hand of her Sister Fanny. It is translated from the Hebrew by Orr Sharf. The protagonist of this book is the titular character, Fanny Keismann, who leaves her home and her wonderful husband, a cheesemaker, and their beloved children, to find her sister’s husband. Adventures and misadventures ensue. Text The Slaughterman’s Daughter, by Yaniv Iczkovits. Translated by Orr Sharf. Maclehose Press. Quercus, 2020.

Yaniv Iczkovits’s “The Slaughterman’s Daughter”

Today, Marcela finishes the three-part series on Ayalet Tsabari’s wonderful memoir, The Art of Leaving, with her favorite thing: cooking! This episode unveils the secrets of Tsabari’s family kitchen. You’re going to want to take notes for this one! Text Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving. Harper Collins, 2019

Ayelet Tsabari’s “Yemenite Recipes”

In her introduction to Vaan Nguyen’s collection, Adriana X. Jacobs writes, “Nguyen’s poetry may circulate in the Anglophone literary market as part of an increasingly visible Vietnamese literary diaspora… And yet, introducing Nguyen’s poetry to the Anglophone reader needs to account for the particularities of the Vietnamese experience in Israel without letting it entirely overshadow her work.” Between 1977 and 1979, approximately 360 Vietnamese refugees entered Israel, and of that number, about half left for the United States or Europe. Those who stayed were able to apply for Israeli citizenship, take on jobs, start families, and continue with their lives.  Nguyen’s parents were among these refugees. She was born in Ashkelon, Israel in 1982, one of five daughters. The family moved around and eventually settled in Jaffa Dalet, a working-class—and largely immigrant and Arab—neighborhood that is part of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality, “not the pastoral tourist part, but the section that is far from the sea,” Nguyen explains. Text The Truffle Eye, Vaan Nguyen. Translated by Adriana X. Jacobs. Zephyr Press; Nov. 2020 Previous Episode on Vaan Nguyen’s Work https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2017/04/26/sitting-with-strangeness-a-conversation-with-adriana-x-jacobs/

Vaan Nguyen’s Poetry Collection: “The Truffle Eye”

Have you seen the Crazy House on HaYarkon Street in Tel Aviv? It’s a highrise that looks like pink cement, with some metallic puffed cream lobbed at the front of it? Or at least that’s how it seems to Marcela. It used to look that way to the poet Lali Tsipi Michaeli, as well. Michaeli says “fear is what I felt as a child every time I drove with my parents in a car on Hayarkon Street. As the car was about to reach the “crazy house” (I called it the “scary”), I hid on the back seat floor and closed my eyes tightly. The house troubled the girl I was. Over the years it has become a Tel Aviv landscape and I have always had a certain aversion to it, a kind of traumatic childhood memory.” Text The Mad House by Lali Tsipi Michaeli, translated by Michael Simkin. Adelaide Books, 2020. Previous Episode with Lali Tsipi Michaeli

Lali Tsipi Michaeli’s “The Mad House”

Yishai Sarid’s The Memory Monster takes the form of a report by the narrator, a young Israeli Holocaust scholar, written to his superior from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, and raises ethical questions about the struggle to cope with the memory of the Holocaust. Text Yishai Sarid. The Memory Monster. Translated by Yardenne Greenspan. Restless Books, Sept. 2020.

Yishai Sarid’s “The Memory Monster”

Exploring Israeli literature in English translation. Host Marcela Sulak takes you through Israel’s literary countryside, cityscapes, and psychological terrain, and the lives of the people who create it.

hubhopper

Israel in Translation

hubhopper