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by Michal Govrin (Author), Judith G. Miller (Editor)
The Israeli author's poetry, essays, and stories on the haunting legacy of WWII "swirl mystically out of history and into dazzling floods of wonder" (Don DeLillo, author of White Noise).
In this portrait of the artist as a young woman, one of Israel's most acclaimed contemporary writers weaves together a kaleidoscope of fiction, poetry, and essays. Populated by both fictional and real people, each tale is in some way a search for meaning in a post-Holocaust world.
Reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, characters irrationally and humanely find reason for hope in a world that offers little. Essays describe Govrin's visits to Poland as a young adult, where her mother had survived a death camp, but had lost her husband and their child, Govrin's half-brother. Capturing the depths of denial and the exuberance of youth in a multiplicity of voices, this haunting collection "joins the few serious books that try through artistic means to face the unspeakable" (Aharon Appelfield, author of Badenheim 1939).
Author Biography
Michal Govrin was born in Tel Aviv, and is the daughter of an Israeli pioneer father and a mother who survived the Holocaust. Working as a novelist, poet, and theater director, Govrin has published eight books of poetry and fiction. Among her novels, The Name received the Kugel Literary Prize in Israel and was nominated for the Koret Jewish Book Award. Snapshots was awarded the 2003 Acum Prize for the Best Literary Achievement of the Year. Govrin was nominated for the Israel Prime Minister's Prize, the nation's highest honor, in 1998. Among the pioneers of Jewish experimental theatre, Govrin has directed award-winning performances in all the major theatres in Israel.
Now residing in Jerusalem, Govrin teaches at the School of Visual Theater and is the academic chair of the Theater Department of Emunah College, both in Jerusalem. She has taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presents an annual lecture at The Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York, and is a former Writer in Residence and Aresty Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers University. Judith G. Miller is a professor and former chair of French at New York University. She has written extensively on French and Francophone theatre, including a recent book on theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine. She also translates plays from the French, most recently excerpts of plays by Hélène Cixous (with an introductory essay) for Columbia University Press.
