S. Yizhar

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S. Yizhar
S. Yizhar

Yizhar Smilansky (27 September 1916 – 21 August 2006), better known by his pen name S. Yizhar, was an Israeli writer and a great innovator in modern Hebrew literature. His pen name S. Yizhar was given to him by the poet and editor Yitzhak Lamdan, when in 1938 he published Yizhar's first story Ephraim Goes Back to Alfalfa in his literary journal Galleons. From then on, Yizhar signed his works with his pen name.

[edit] Life

Yizhar was born to a family of writers. His father's uncle was the famous writer Moshe Smilansky. His father, Zev Zass Smilensky, was also a writer. The Smilansky family also numbered among them the writers Meir-Siko and David.

Yizhar completed education studies in Jerusalem. He was a teacher at Yavniel, Ben Shemen, Hulda, and Rehovot. For a while he continued his university studies for the doctoral degree, and served as Professor of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Mount Scopus) until his retirement. In 1986-7 he was Visiting Writer at the Center for Jewish Studies at Harvard University, and he continued to lecture regularly in Teacher Education at Levinsky College in Tel Aviv well into the late 1990's. In addition to his literary writing, he created a rich body of op-ed writing. His essays particularly gained fame starting at the time of the 1982 Lebanon War.

He was a member of Knesset for Mapai. He was chosen as a promising young writer, against the young writers of Mapam and the Labour Unity party. For a time he switched to the Rafi faction. In his Knesset activities, he primarily spoke out for the country's nature preservation laws.

[edit] Writing

Yizhar's Hebrew prose is at the highest level of modern Hebrew prose writing. He drew upon the works of Uri Nissan Gnessin, whose influence is prominent in Yizhar's early work. He drew upon other sources as well, among them the sciences relevant to the land of Israel, such as the country's geology, its geomorphology, its climate, and particularly its flora. Some say that the relationship between person and space, the countryman and the land of Israel, the artist and the landscape, is the key to his literary work.

His writing is distinguished by a characteristic use of language. In his long formulations he draws the reader into his heroes' stream of consciousness, as they employ a medley of high-flown language and street sayings.

From the end of the 1930s to the 1950s Yizhar published some short novellas, among them Ephraim Goes Back to Alfalfa, On the Edge of the Negev, The Wood on the Hill, A Night Without Shootings, Journey to the Evening's Shores, Midnight Convoy, and a few collections of short stories.

In the late 1950s his massive work Days of Ziklag appeared, comprising two volumes and more than a thousand pages. This work completely changed the outlook for Hebrew prose on the one hand, and "war literature" on the other. The work earned him the Israel Prize at only 43, one of the youngest ages among recipients of the prize.

Although he remained in the public eye as an outstanding polemicist, he broke his decades-long literary silence only in 1992 with the publication of his novel, Mikdamot. This was quickly followed by five additional new volumes of prose, both novels and collections of short stories, the last of which, Discovering Elijah, was published in 1999 and later adapted for the stage. The play won first prize at the prestigious Acco Drama Festival in 2001.

Yizhar also wrote stories for children in which he contended with the defining themes of his youth, as in Oran and Ange concerning Israeli cultivation citrus fruits; Uncle Moshe's Chariot, a memoir of the character of his famous uncle Moshe Smilansky; and others.

[edit] References

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