Contemporary Israeli Literature: The Personal and the Political

Acclaimed Israeli Novelist, Assaf Gavron

Wednesday, March 2, 2016
4:30 PM
Royce Hall 190

Co-sponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Department of Comparative Literature, Center for Near Eastern Studies, and Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies

This lecture will examine contemporary Israeli fiction -- stories which cover the range of human and societal questions, as well as political issues. Gavron will explore the influence of the politically-charged environment in Israel on the kind of fiction and other art forms created within it, and the role of authors in such an environment. He will discuss his two novels, "Almost Dead", taking place during the second Intifada, and “The Hilltop”, set in a West Bank settlement, and how his experience with researching, writing and publishing these politically charged novels in Israel and abroad. He will also discuss other works that have been translated into English.

About the Author

Assaf Gavron is the author of five novels (Ice, Moving, Almost Dead, Hydromania and The Hilltop), a collection of short stories (Sex in the cemetery), and a non-fiction collection of Jerusalem falafel-joint reviews (Eating Standing Up). Of Gavron’s most recent novel, The Hilltop, published in English in 2014, Amos Oz wrote the work “shimmers with wisdom, truth, humour and melancholy.” The New York Times called it “structurally brilliant.”

His fiction has been translated into German, Russian, Italian, French, English, Dutch, Swedish, Greek, Bulgarian, Czech, Spanish and Polish. Among the awards he has won are the Israeli Prime Minister’s Creative Award for Authors, the Israeli Bernstein Prize for the novel The Hilltop, the DAAD artists-in-Berlin fellowship in Germany, the Buch Fur Die Stadt award in Germany for the novel CrocAttack and the Prix Courrier International award in France for the same novel. His fiction was adapted for the stage in Habima – Israel’s national theater, and four of his novels were optioned for film or TV by Israeli and international film producers.

As a translator of fiction, Gavron is responsible for the highly-regarded English-to-Hebrew translations of J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories, Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint and Jonathan Safran Foer’s novels, among others. He also co-translated his own Almost Dead from Hebrew to English.

Gavron was the chief writer of the prize-winning computer game Peacemaker; and has contributed to numerous newspapers and magazines, writing on subjects ranging from sports to politics, and from music to food. As the captain of Israel’s national writers’ and poets’ soccer team, he led it in several international matches. Gavron is also the singer and main songwriter of cult pop group The Foot and Mouth. The group released five albums, six years apart from each other. The next album will be out in 2019.

In Spring 2016, Gavron is the Israel Institute Visiting Professor at San Diego State University, where he is teaching two courses: "Literature of the Middle East" and "Techniques of the Novel."

Read more about The Hilltop.

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies