Dahlia Ravikovitch

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Dahlia Ravikovitch (17 November 1936 – 21 August 2005) was an Israeli poet and peace activist, best known for the freedom of expression in her romantic poetry. Born in Ramat Gan, she was educated at Kibbutz Geva and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her first poems appeared in the Hebrew language poetry journal Orlogin (Hourglass), edited by Avraham Shlonsky, and it was Shlonsky who encouraged her to pursue writing as a career. Her first book of poetry, The Love of an Orange, published in 1959, established her as one of Israel's leading young native-born poets. In all, she published ten volumes of poetry in her native Hebrew. In addition to poetry, she also contributed to prose works (including three collections of short stories) and children's literature, and translated poetry into Hebrew. Many of her poems were set to music. Her most famous poem is Booba Memukenet ("Clockwork [Mechanical] Doll").

Ravikovitch's poems have been translated into 21 languages. Many of the poems that were translated into English were published in two books: Dress of Fire (first edition 1976, second edition 1978) and The Window (1989).

Ravikovitch was active in the Israeli peace movement.

On 21 August 2005, Ravikovitch was found dead in her apartment. Initial reports speculated the cause of death to be suicide, but the autopsy determined the cause of death to be sudden heart irregularities.

[edit] References

• The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself (2003) ISBN 0-8143-2485-1

[edit] External links

• Dahlia Ravikovitch page at The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
• An obituary in The Guardian.