Six Israeli Novellas

by Ruth Almog (Editor), Gershon Shaked (Editor), Dalya Bilu (Translator)

This is the most representative anthology yet published of modern Hebrew novellas, a book that will provide any reader with a fine overview of the best fiction that small but vibrant country has to offer. Included here are novellas by six of Israel's most important and honored contemporary writers. Aharon Appelfeld's In the Isles of St. George tells of a fugitive black marketeer hiding on a desolate Italian island, who finds his past, his Jewishness, and his very sense of identity resolved. In Yani on the Mountain , David Grossman explores the psychological impact of the 1973 Yom Kippur War on a young generation of Israelis living in a Mount Sinai army base in its final days before demolition. Ruth Almog's Shrinking lyrically portrays the loneliness and frustrations of a middle-aged heroine whose longing for human contact is thwarted by her stifling bond to her father.
Also included are Yaakov Shabtai's Uncle Peretz Takes Flight , a grotesque portrait of one man's cowardice, in the vein of Shalom Aleichem; Yehudit Hendel's Small Change , about the interaction between the paranoid experience of an Israeli woman abroad and a complex father-daughter relationship; and Benjamin Tammuz's My Brother , in which one brother's selfish conquests are contrasted to the other's passive, but ultimately more sinister, altruism. In the words of editor Gershon Shaked, these novellas "show modern Israeli fiction at its richest and most diversified, with a character all its own."

338 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1999

About the author

Ruth Almog (רות אלמוג) was born 15 May 1936 in Petah Tikva, Mandate Palestine to parents who immigrated from Hamburg in 1933. She studied at the David Yellin Teachers College, and at Tel Aviv University. She taught philosophy and film at Tel Aviv University. She was the deputy editor of the literary section of the mainstream daily Haaretz and writer-in-residence at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

She is married to poet Aaron Almog; they have two daughters.

Reviews

[Ari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great cross section of modern Israeli authors, this group of 6 novellas includes fiction that spans generations and genres. David Grossman's 'Yani on the Mountain' wins for my favorite (Hemmingway-esque story of a military officer in charge of the destruction of the camp--and symbolically his life as well-- where he has been stationed for his entire career) and Yehudit Hendel's 'Small Change' wins for seriously disturbing. Stories of life, without tied up endings. Worth reading.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some stories are better than the others. I skipped few cause they were mega boring, some were really interesting!

[Xander]

Read: Benjamin Tammuz - My Brother