Israel In Translation

Informações:

Sinopse

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

Episódios

  • “Three”: D. A. Mishani’s Thriller Read

    26/08/2020 Duração: 09min

    Marcela has got a thriller for you! Three, by D. A. Mishani, is a page turner that tells the stories of three women: Orna, a divorced single-mother looking online for a new relationship; Emilia, a deeply religious Latvian immigrant on a spiritual search; and Ella, married and mother of three, returning to University to write her thesis. All of them will meet the same man. His name is Gil. And he won’t tell the truth about himself. Text: D. A. Mishani. Three. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Europa Editions, August 18, 2020.

  • “The Tunnel”

    12/08/2020 Duração: 10min

    It may sound crazy, but A. B. Yehoshua has written a page-turner about an aging engineer in the early stages of dementia, which features descriptions of highway construction in great detail. How on earth did he do this? Well, perhaps it is the honest grappling with what it feels like to be diagnosed with an illness that will eventually erase your personality and knowledge. And surely it is the context of the engineer’s long and loving marriage to a pediatrician, a marriage that is full of humor, understanding, and honesty. And finally, it is the mystery of the secret military highway in the desert, and the textured relationships of two engineers on opposite ends of their career, an army general, and the people who inhabit the negev, whose secret lives are intertwined with the fate of the road. Text: A. B. Yehoshua, The Tunnel. Translated by Stuart Schoffman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, August 2020. Previous Podcast on A. B. Yehoshua https://tlv1.fm/arts-culture/2015/07/22/a-b-yehoshuas-green-seas-and-yellow-c

  • Meir Shalev’s “My Wild Garden”

    29/07/2020 Duração: 08min

    With the world hit hard by the pandemic, Marcela has been taking consolation in nature, noting, as well, the benefits on the flora and fauna around us when we humans withdraw a little from the world and allow nature more space. The March arrival of Meir Shalev’s book, My Wild Garden. Notes from a Writer’s Eden, in Joanna Chen’s eloquent translation, could not have been more timely. A beautiful book, from the size and shape of the hard copy, to the feel of the paper. Even the font type is notable. Rafaella Shir’s watercolor illustrations subtly draw out the descriptions, rather than compete with them. Marcela reads her favorite passage, which is from the introduction of the book. Text: Meir Shalev, My Wild Garden. Notes from a Writer’s Eden. Translated by Joanna Chen. Illustrated by Rafaella Shir. Shocken Books, March 31, 2020 Previous podcast on Meir Shalev

  • Miri Ben-Simhon’s “The Absolute Reader”

    15/07/2020 Duração: 11min

    Miri Ben-Simhon was born into a Moroccan family, on the near bottom of the social scale. She grew up and remained in Jerusalem. Her poetry faces Mizrahi women’s lives in Israel straight on. The literary critic Yitzhak Laor once noted about Ben-Simhon’s work and perspective, that “In the literary arena at the beginning of the 1980s, it took a lot of courage – not to speak about Mizrahim […] but as one.” Text: Miri Ben-Simhon, The Absolute Reader, translated by Lisa Katz. Toad Press, 2020.

  • Shimon Adaf’s “Aviva-No”

    01/07/2020 Duração: 10min

    This week, Marcela examine Shimon Adaf’s wrenching and linguistically innovative elegy to his sister, who died at the age of 43. Aviva-No is Adaf’s third collection of poetry, and it won the 2010 Yehuda Amichai Prize. It has been translated into English by Yael Segalovitz. Text: Aviva-No by Shimon Adaf. Translated by Yael Sigalovitz. Alice James Books, 2019.

  • Adania Shibli’s “Minor Detail”

    17/06/2020 Duração: 10min

    On May 26 the novel Minor Detail, by the Palestinian writer Adania Shibli, appeared in Elisabeth Jaquette’s English translation with New Directions Press. Originally published in Arabic in 2017, the novel centers around a brutal crime — the rape and murder of a young Bedouin girl, in the Negev in August, 1949, during the Israeli War of Independence, which is called in Arabic the Nakhba, or disaster. Decades later, a young woman in Ramallah becomes obsessed with the events surrounding the crime. Marcela reads from the opening of the novel’s second section, narrated by this woman.   Text: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette. New Directions Press, May 26, 2020.

  • The Drive

    03/06/2020 Duração: 06min

    On this episode, Marcela reads from Yair Assulin’s searing novel that tells the journey of a young Israeli soldier at the breaking point, unable to continue carrying out his military service, yet terrified of the consequences of leaving the army. Born in 1986, Yair Assulin studied philosophy and history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Drive is the first of two novels he has written and for which he won Israel’s Ministry of Culture Prize and the Sapir Prize for debut fiction. He has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for authors, writes a weekly column in the newspaper Haaretz and has been a visiting lecturer in Jewish Studies at Yale.   Text: Yair Assulin, The Drive. Translated by Jessica Cohen. New Vessel Press, 2020

  • Darwish’s “In the Presence of Absence”

    20/05/2020 Duração: 09min

    This week is the last week of Ramadan, which began on April 23rd and will ends Saturday, May 23. To acknowledge those who are fasting in isolation and heat, this episode features Mahmoud Darwish’s aptly titled collection, In the Presence of Absence, translated by Sinan Antoon.   Text: Mahmoud Darwish In the Presence of Absence. Translated by Sinan Antoon. Archipelago Books, 2012.

  • “Ladies From the Bible Tell Their Tales”

    06/05/2020 Duração: 11min

    Marcela reads from Karen Alkalay-Gut’s A Word in Edgewise: Ladies From the Bible Tell Their Tales, published by Simple Conundrum Press. The bible devotes quite a bit of space to the minds of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — we know how they feel, what makes them angry or happy; we hear about their arguments with God. Through her poetry, Alkaly-Gut gives the matriarchs a voice. Karen Alkalay-Gut, was born in London and is professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University. In addition to collections of poetry and literary scholarship, she writes lyrics for a rock group, Panic Ensemble, and her “Tel Aviv Diary” appears daily on http://www.karenalkalay-gut.com/diary   Text: Karen Alkalay-Gut A Word in Edgewise: Ladies From the Bible Tell Their Tales

  • Track Changes, Part 2

    22/04/2020 Duração: 08min

    On this episode, Marcela reads from Sayed Kashua’s fourth, and latest novel, Track Changes. The novel was published in December by Grove Press. Kashua’s protagonist is a nameless “I” who shares considerable biographical overlaps with the author. This suggests, perhaps even implies, the so-called truth of Kashua’s first-person fiction. Yet his character, whose job is to transcribe others’ memories onto the page, repeatedly reveals his elisions from and additions to strangers’ memoirs-for-hire, often inserting his own memories as their own, thereby erasing his life in scattered pieces. The narrator’s confessions are hardly reliable, making every level of his storytelling suspect, which Kashua further visually underscores by “track changes”-style crossed-out text.

  • Track Changes

    25/03/2020 Duração: 10min

    On this episode, Marcela reads from Sayed Kashua’s fourth, and latest novel, Track Changes. The novel was published in December by Grove Press. Kashua’s protagonist is a nameless “I” who shares considerable biographical overlaps with the author. This suggests, perhaps even implies, the so-called truth of Kashua’s first-person fiction. Yet his character, whose job is to transcribe others’ memories onto the page, repeatedly reveals his elisions from and additions to strangers’ memoirs-for-hire, often inserting his own memories as their own, thereby erasing his life in scattered pieces. The narrator’s confessions are hardly reliable, making every level of his storytelling suspect, which Kashua further visually underscores by “track changes”-style crossed-out text. Text: Sayed Kashua, Track Changes. Translated by Mitch Ginsburg. Grove Press, 2019. Previous Podcasts: https://tlv1.fm/arts-culture/2016/04/20/sayed-kashuas-farewell/ https://tlv1.fm/arts-culture/2014/11/26/sayed-kashua-an-examination-of-arab-israeli-

  • “One, Two, Three”

    11/03/2020 Duração: 10min

    Marcela reads from Anat Zecharia’s poem, “One, Two, Three,” which recently appeared in an issue of The Ilanot Review, in collaboration with Granta Hebrew. The poem’s title and subtitle refer to Uzi Hitman’s children song about three dwarfs who sit chatting behind a mountain. Anat is known as an outspoken poet who writes forthrightly about women's desires. Her work has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for writers. She has published three collections of poetry — As Soon as Beautiful (2008), Due to Human Error (2012), and Palestina I (2016). Her new book, “Ever After,” won an ACUM literary award for 2019. Text: Anat Zecharia “One, Two, Three.” Translated by Lisa Katz and Maayan Eitan. The Ilanot Review Music: עוזי חיטמן - מאחורי ההר

  • “The Children I Will Never Have”

    26/02/2020 Duração: 07min

    Marcela highlights poetry from the latest issue of The Ilanot Review which, in collaboration with Granta Hebrew, published English translations of up and coming poets and writers, most of whom are featured for the very first time. Text: “And I Begin to Confess” by Salih Habib, translated by Christine Khoury Bishara. The Ilanot Review “The Children I Will Never Have” by Liat Rosenblatt, translated by Jane Medved. The Ilanot Review “Rivka Speaks” by Ori Ferster, translated by Marcela Sulak. The Ilanot Review “I am the one who’s free” by Dareen Tatour, translated by Christine Khoury Bishara. The Ilanot Review “Biotope” by Shira Stav, translated by Adriana X Jacobs. The Ilanot Review

  • Nava Semel’s “Isra Ilse”

    12/02/2020 Duração: 09min

    This week Marcela reads from Nava Semel’s novel, Isra Ilse, an alternative history of the Jewish People in which there was no state of Israel, and no holocaust. The novel is divided into three parts. Part 1, a detective story, opens in September 2001 when Liam Emanuel, an Israeli descendant of Noah, learns about and inherits Grand Island, which is downriver from Niagara Falls. He leaves Israel intending to reclaim this “Promised Land” in America. Shortly after he arrives in America Liam disappears. Simon T. Lenox, a Native American police investigator, tries to recover Israel’s “missing son.” Text: Nava Semel, Isra Ilse. Translated by Jessica Cohen. Mandel Vilar Press (October 17, 2016)

  • Ayala Ben Lulu's “Mona Lisa”

    29/01/2020 Duração: 08min

    This week Marcela returns to focus on up and coming Israeli writers who have rarely or never before been translated into English, by featuring Ayala Ben Lulu. This story appears in the latest issue of The Ilanot Review, which was a collaboration with Granta Hebrew. Ayala Ben Lulu is an Israeli poet, winner of the Teva prize for poetry. She holds a B.A. in psychology and an M.Sc. in history and philosophy of science and ideas. Text: Mona Lisa by Ayala Ben Lulu. Translated by Karen Marron. The Ilanot Review

  • Ronit Matalon’s “And the Bride Closed the Door”

    15/01/2020 Duração: 10min

    This podcast is dedicated to marriage—all the engaged couples with cold feet, newly married couples, whose memories of the ceremony are still fresh, long-married couples who survived the wedding day. We’ll be reading from and discussing the last book Ronit Matalon wrote before her death in 2017. It is called And the Bride Closed the Door, and it was awarded Israel’s prestigious Brenner Prize the day before her death. Previous Podcasts: Bliss The One Facing Us The Sound of her Steps Text: And the Bride Closed the Door, by Ronit Matalon. Translated by Jessica Cohen. New Vessels Press, 2019.

  • Sara Aharoni's “The First Mrs. Rothschild”

    01/01/2020 Duração: 09min

    The novel, The First Mrs. Rothschild, by Sara Aharoni, tells the story of the wife of Meir Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the banking dynasty, and is written in the form of a personal journal. Sara Aharoni was born in Israel in 1953. She worked as a teacher, educator and school principal for twenty years. Together with her husband, Meir Aharoni, Sara wrote, edited and published a series of books about Israel, as well as six children’s books. She is the author of the bestselling Saltanat's Love, based on her mother’s life story and the novel Persian Silence. Text: The First Mrs. Rothschild, a novel by Sara Aharoni. Translated by Yardenne Greenspan. Amazon Crossing, July 2019.

  • Grosman's “The Shop on Main Street”

    18/12/2019 Duração: 07min

    Today we read from the story The Shop on Main Street, written by Ladislav Grosman, a Slovak novelist and screenwriter. The story is comical and tragic, and it asks the question—are we not our brother’s keeper? Who is our brother? Text: Shop on Main Street by Ladislav Grosman. Translated by Iris Urwin Lewitova. Karolinum Press, 2019.

  • “The Book of Disappearances”

    11/12/2019 Duração: 10min

    Set in contemporary Tel Aviv forty eight hours after Israelis discover all their Palestinian neighbors have vanished, the novel The Book of Disappearances unfolds through alternating narrators, Alaa, a young Palestinian man who converses with his dead grandmother in the journal he left behind when he disappeared, and his Jewish neighbor, Ariel, a journalist struggling to understand the traumatic event. Text: The Book of Disappearances by Ibtisam Azem, translated by Sinan Antoon.

  • Nora the Mind Reader

    04/12/2019 Duração: 07min

    What if, when you were in Kindergarten, your mother had given you a magic wand that allowed you to read people’s minds? Well, that’s just what happens in Orit Gidali’s book, Nora the Mind Reader, which will bring to a close our month of illustrated children’s books written by Israeli poets and writers. Previous Episodes on Orit Gidali: https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2016/07/26/did-you-pack-it-yourself/ https://tlv1.fm/israel-in-translation/2019/10/16/welcoming-in-the-ushpizin-poems-for-sukkot/ Text: Nora The Mind Reader, by Orit Gidali, illustrated by Aya Gordon-Noy, translated by Annette Appel. Enchanged Lion Books, 2012. Music: יהודית רביץ - הילדה הכי יפה בגן

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