A. B. Yehoshua

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Avraham B. Yehoshua
Born:	1936 Jerusalem
Occupation:	novelist, essayist, short story writer, Playwright
Nationality:	Israel
Literary movement:	Israeli "New Wave"
Debut works:	Early in the Summer of 1970
Influences:	Franz Kafka, William Faulkner, Shmuel Yosef Agnon

Avraham "Boolie" Yehoshua (born in Jerusalem in 1936) is an Israeli novelist, essayist, and playwright, known publicly as A. B. Yehoshua, and familiarly as "Boolie".

1 Biography
2 Quotes
3 Works published in English
4 Footnotes
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Yehoshua was born in the fifth Jerusalem generation of a Sephardi Jewish family. After studying literature and philosophy at the Hebrew University, he began a teaching career. From 1963 to 1967 he resided and taught in Paris. In 1972 he joined the faculty of the University of Haifa.^[1]

From the end of his military service, he began to publish fiction. He became a notable figure in the "new wave" generation of Israeli writers. They contrasted with the social concern of earlier writers by focusing on the individual and interpersonal. Yehoshua names Franz Kafka, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, and William Faulkner as formative influences ^[2]. Harold Bloom has compared Yehoshua to Faulkner in an article appearing in the New York Times^[3] and also mentions him in his book The Western Canon ^[4].

Yehoshua attended the signing of the Geneva Accord. He presents his political views in essays and interviews.

Currently he is a senior lecturer in literature at the University of Haifa, in the city where he resides. He has won the Bialik Prize and the Israel Prize for literature.

[edit] Quotes

"....[Diaspora Jews] change [their] nationalities like jackets. Once they were Polish and Russian; now they are British and American. One day they could choose to be Chinese or Singaporean...For me, Avraham Yehoshua, there is no alternative... I cannot keep my identity outside Israel. [Being] Israeli is my skin, not my jacket. ^[5]

"The Palestinians are in a situation of insanity reminiscent of the insanity of the German people in the Nazi period. The Palestinians are not the first people that the Jewish people has driven insane." Subsequent clarification by Yehoshua: "I ask myself a question that must be asked: What brought the Germans and what is bringing the Palestinians to such hatred of us? … We have a tough history. We came here out of a Jewish experience, and the settlements are messing it up." ^[6]

"Diaspora Judaism is masturbation," Yehoshua told editors and reporters at the Jerusalem Post. "Here," meaning, in Israel, he said, "it is the real thing." ^[7]

[edit] Works published in English

[edit] Novels

Early in the Summer of 1970 [Bi-Thilat Kayitz, 1970, 1972]. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1977. London, Heinemann, 1980. New York, Berkley Publishing, 1981. London, Fontana Paperbacks, 1990. ISBN 0385025904
Three Days and a Child [Shlosha Yamim Ve-Yeled, 1975]. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1970. London, Peter Owen, 1971. ISBN 0720601614
The Lover [Ha-Me'ahev, 1977]. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1978 (translated by Philip Simpson). Dutton, 1985. Harvest/HBJ, 1993. ISBN 0156539128
A Late Divorce [Gerushim Meuharim, 1982]. London, Harvill Press, 1984. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1984. London, Sphere/Abacus Books, 1985. New York, Dutton, 1985. San Diego, Harcourt Brace, 1993. ISBN 0156494477
Five Seasons [Molcho, 1987]. New York, Doubleday, 1989. New York, Dutton Obelisk, 1989. London, Collins, 1989. Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1990. London, Fontana, 1990. ISBN 1870015940
Mr. Mani [Mar Manni, 1990]. New York, Doubleday, 1992. London, Collins, 1992. London, Peter Halban, 1993. San Diego, Harvest/HBJ, 1993. London, Phoenix/Orion Books, 1994. ISBN 1857991850
Open Heart [Ha-Shiv`a Me-Hodu (The Return from India), 1994]. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1995. London, Peter Halban, 1996. San Diego, Harvest/HBJ, 1997. ISBN 0156004844
A Journey to the End of the Millennium [Masah El Sof Ha-Elef, 1997]. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1999. London, Peter Halban, 1999. ISBN 0156011166
The Liberated Bride [Ha-Kala Ha-Meshachreret, 2001]. London, Peter Halban, 2004. ISBN 0156030160
A Woman from Jerusalem [Shlihuto Shel Ha-memouneh Al Mashabei Enosh (The Human Resources Supervisor's Mission), 2004]. New York, Harcourt, 2006. ISBN 0151012261

[edit] Short Stories

The Continuing Silence of a Poet. London, Peter Halban, 1988. London, Fontana Paperbacks, 1990. London, New York, Penguin, 1991. Syracuse, N.Y., Syracuse University Press, 1998. ISBN 0815605595

[edit] Essays

Israel. London, Collins, 1988. New York, Harper & Row, 1988. Jerusalem, Steimatzky/Collins Harvill, 1988.
Between Right and Right [Bein Zechut Le-Zechut, 1980]. Garden City N.Y., Doubleday, 1981. ISBN 0385170351
The Terrible Power of a Minor Guilt [Kocha Ha-Nora Shel Ashma Ktana, 1998]. New York, Syracuse University Press, 2000. ISBN 0815606567

[edit] Plays

A Night in May [Layla Be-May, 1975]. Tel Aviv, Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, 1974.
Possessions [Hafatzim, 1986]. Portsmouth, Heinemann, 1993.

[edit] Footnotes

^ Feld, Ross. "Restless Souls: The novels of Israeli writer A. B. Yehoshua create their own diaspora." Boston Review, 2000.
^ Wiley, David. "Talkin' 'bout his generation: Israeli writer A.B. Yehoshua on the waning art of the democratic novel." Minnesota Daily, 1997.
^ Bloom, Harold. "Domestic Derangements; A Late Divorce, By A.B. Yehoshua Translated by Hillel Halkin," New York Times, February 19, 1984.
^ Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon New York: Harcourt Brace & Co, 1994. 532.
^ from a speech delivered at the opening panel of the centennial celebration of the American Jewish Committee. Jerusalem Post Article, AJN Article
^ A. B. Yehoshua at an academic conference, Jerusalem Post, June 21, 2002
http://www.jpost.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/Full&cid=1023716529742
^ http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/A/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1047531932327