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.
https://tlv1.fm/israelintranslation
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 1 day 20 hours 39 minutes
An Elegant Professor: Ruby Namdar’s "The Ruined House"
Ruby Namdar's second novel, "The Ruined House", appeared in its English translation in 2017. Set in New York, the book centers on an esteemed professor. It is uncannily timely in that it dovetails with the #MeToo movement and the close scrutiny that...
Travels Through Language: The Poetry of the Jerusalem Light Rail
This podcast is devoted to the poetry of the Jerusalem Light Rail. Each of the 23 stops of the Jerusalem Light Rail's red line features a poem, translated into Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Some of the poems depict bodies in a state of fatigue, as if...
I Live in an Old Book: Poems by Haim Gouri
Haim Gouri, the last poet of Israeli’s founding generation, died one week ago today. He wrote of the terrible sacrifice of war, and of memory and camaraderie. Born in Tel Aviv in 1923, Gouri was a poet, novelist, documentary film maker, journalist,...
For the Sake of the Homeland: Nava Semel's "Paper Bride"
Author and playwright Nava Semel passed away in December 2017. Her novel "Paper Bride" paints a vivid portrait of British Palestine in the 1930s, seen through the eyes of an illiterate boy. Here is an excerpt from the novel: And so, dear children, we...
A Translator Poet: Peter Cole's "Hymns and Qualms"
Peter Cole is a poet and translator who has recreated Spain's golden age of Jewish culture and adapted tenth-century Arabic-language poetry to 21st-century English so skillfully that the lines sing. This episode features translations from Cole's new...
And The Rat Laughed: Remembering Writer Nava Semel
Novelist and playwright, Nava Semel, passed away in December 2017. There are writers that you plan to read and never do, and then, when they pass away, you regret not having read them in their lifetime. Nava Semel is one of these writers. Her work was...
In Memory of a Master: Aharon Appelfeld's "The Story of a Life"
The acclaimed and prolific Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld passed away last week at the age of 85, leaving behind 47 published works. This episode honors his legacy with excerpts from his memoir, entitled The Story of a Life. Here is an excerpt...
Tale of Two Friends: "Bliss" by Ronit Matalon
Ronit Matalon's Bliss: A Novel revolves around two friends: Sarah, a politically active photographer, and Ofra, a selfless graduate student. The story is told in flashbacks as Ofra is summoned from Tel Aviv to a provincial township near Paris for a...
An Infusion of Religious, Secular, and Sensual Registers: Poems by Esther Ettinger
We end 2017 with an infusion of religious, secular, biblical, and sensual registers and sensibilities as we enter the poetic world of Esther Ettinger, curated through the translations of Lisa Katz. The Jerusalem-born Ettinger is the author of five...
The Woman from Nazareth: Dan Banaya-Seri's “Birds of the Shade”
Host Marcela Sulak reads from a folkloric-infused story by the Jerusalem-born writer Dan Banaya-Seri, in which a simple Jewish man uses his minimal understanding of Christmas to try to make sense of his marital obligations. Text: “Birds of the...