By Edward Nawotka Israel and the Arab World . . . never the twain shall meet? Perhaps. But if anything has the power to change people’s minds, books do. Israel and the Arab World…never the twain shall meet? Perhaps, but — as discussed in today’s lead story — literary translation between the two cultures will surely help each side understand …
Ian McEwan to Be Awarded 2011 Jerusalem Book Prize
By Edward Nawotka Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson, President of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has announced that Ian McEwan will be awarded the Jerusalem Prize during this year’s Jerusalem International Book Fair, which takes place from February 20-25. The Jerusalem Prize is awarded biennially to a writer whose work best expresses and promotes the idea of “freedom of the individual in society.” It …
Book Review: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
By Gwendolyn Dawson The Finkler Question, Howard Jacobson’s latest novel and the winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, is an exploration of love, death, grief, friendship, and what it means to be Jewish in contemporary London. At the novel’s beginning, Julian Treslove is mugged after leaving a dinner party with his two best friends, Sam Finkler and Libor Sevick. …
Though New to Frankfurt, Iris Mor is No Newbie
By Chip Rossetti A newcomer to Frankfurt this year, Iris Mor, editor-in-chief of Israel’s Keter Books, is looking forward to meeting some of her growing list of contacts in person. Mor came to Keter last year from Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, where for fifteen years she had been the arts and culture editor, although she had always hoped to move to …
Israel’s Bookstore War
By Edward Nawotka ISRAEL: Hebrew Book Week started yesterday and — not unlike the Jewish holiday of Chanukah, where oil meant for a single day burned for eight — will miraculously last for ten days. Festivities are spread out across nine cities, while forty smaller towns will be hosting smaller three day events. Established in 1926 in Tel Aviv, it …
Bonus Material: Israeli Books in Various Languages
For much of the past decade, the National Library of Israel has been documenting the nation’s publishing scene and collecting statistics. For 2008, it reports 6,384 new books were published in the country in a variety of languages. Of those 5,621 titles were in Hebrew, followed by 368 in English, 206 in Russian, 121 in Arabic, 21 in Spanish, 18 …