A portrait of Israeli literature in its full transnational and multilingual complexity.
2021 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title
Toward the end of the twentieth century, an unprecedented surge of writing altered the Israeli literary scene in profound ways. As fresh creative voices and multiple languages vied for recognition, diversity replaced consensus. Genres once accorded lower status-such as the graphic novel and science fiction-gained readership and positive critical notice. These trends ushered in not only the discovery and recovery of literary works but also a major rethinking of literary history. In Since 1948, scholars consider how recent voices have succeeded older ones and reverberated in concert with them; how linguistic and geographical boundaries have blurred; how genres have shifted; and how canon and competition have shaped Israeli culture. Charting surprising trajectories of a vibrant, challenging, and dynamic literature, the contributors analyze texts composed in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Arabic; by Jews and non-Jews; and by Israelis abroad as well as writers in Israel. What emerges is a portrait of Israeli literature as neither minor nor regional, but rather as transnational, multilingual, and worthy of international attention.
Table of Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Under Construction: A Kind of Festschrift for Israeli Literature
Nancy E. Berg and Naomi B. Sokoloff
Part One: Through Time: Silences, Voices, Echoes
Not One, but Five Moments of Silence: On the Poetics and Politics of Asking for Silence
Eran Tzelgov
Sounding the Mizrachi Voice: Hafla Thematics from the Ma’abarah to the Post Arabic Novel
Michal Raizen
Anthological Poetics: Reading Amichai and Halfi in Liberal Prayerbooks
Wendy I. Zierler
Part Two: Across Language and Territory: Literature and Identity
When Yiddish Was Young in IsraelShachar PinskerA Canaanite Story: Language, National Identity, and the 1948 War
Yael Dekel
Hebrew Unbound: Alternative Homelands in the New World
Melissa Weininger
Part Three: Between the Lines: Rethinking Genres
From Here to Elsewhere and Back in Israeli Hebrew Children’s Literature
Shai Ginsburg
‘The pigs were my best friends’: Animals and the Holocaust in Alona Frankel’s Memoirs
Naomi B. Sokoloff
Stalagim: At the Limits of Israeli Literature
Eric Zakim
Part Four: Concerning Canons
Disruptive Nativity: The Poetry of Rina Shani and the Sixties in Israel
Riki Traum
Asaf Schurr and the Critique of Postmodernism in Contemporary Hebrew Literature
Yaron Peleg
‘And the Winner Is…’: The Economy of Literary Awards
Nancy E. Berg
Appendix: A Canaanite Story: ‘The Lord Be Praised’
Eitan Notev
On Our Bookshelf
Contributors
Index
About the author
Nancy E. Berg is Assistant Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis.
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