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| Israeli literature at Leipzig fair
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19 March marked the closing date of the three-day Leipzig Book Fair – the oldest one of its kind in the country. Ranked second in size after Frankfurt, it attracts a host of Israeli writers who are becoming increasingly popular among German readers.
The number of Germans reading literature translated from Hebrew has increased so much that a bibliography of German translations of Israeli authors has been made available for sale since September 2005.
During the fair the Israeli embassy, in conjunction with Germany’s largest book club, the Bertelsmann Club, organised a series of readings by prominent Israeli authors who came to Germany to take part in the fair. The most prominent of the authors were perhaps Aharon Appelfeld, Lizzie Doron, David Grossman, Zeruya Shalev and Joshua Sobol.
Zeruya Shalev, who seems to come to Germany on an almost monthly basis, presented her book “Late Family” – about a woman undergoing a midlife change – the third book in a trilogy.
Aharon Appelfeld read from his book, “Until Evening Sets In”, a novel about the decline of modern Jewry in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
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Zeruya Shalev
Photo: ITHL | David Grossman presented another version of the biblical Samson story, in his book “Lion’s Honey”.
In her latest novel, “Quiet Times”, Lizzie Doron portrays the world of manicurist Leale, who worked in a small hair salon for over 30 years.
Joshua Sobol read from “Whiskey’s Fine” - the story of a man whose many different roles in life changes meanings depending on how others interpret them.
Complete bibliography
The authors found curious crowds eager to learn more about the Israeli book world.
Now, Anat Feinberg’s 2005 publication of her Handbook of Modern Hebrew Literature will help interested readers to discover the world of translated Hebrew literature.
According to the Israeli embassy, Feinberg’s primary source was the database of the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literatrure in Tel Aviv.
In her almost 300-page catalogue, Feinberg “presents a nation that was born from books and not from an army of pyramid builders,” according to Amos Oz.
Oz, according to the embassy report, believes that “there is hardly a country that has not been influenced by books as much as Israel – from the Bible to Herzl’s ‘Judenstaat’”.
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