Yehuda Amichai

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Yehuda Amichai (1924 - 2000) was an Israeli poet. Amichai is considered by many to be the greatest modern Israeli poet, and was one of the first to write in colloquial Hebrew. His writings often dealt with the issues of day-to-day life, and were less overtly literary than many nineteenth century Hebrew poets such as Hayyim Nahman Bialik. His writings are characterized by gentle irony and the pain of damaged love. It was a love for people, for the Torah and Eretz Yisrael, most of all it was a love for the city of Jerusalem.

Amichai was born in Würzburg, Germany, as Ludwig Pfeuffer, then immigrated with his family to Palestine in 1936. He fought in the World War II (British Army Jewish Brigade) and the Israeli War of Independence as a young man. He became an advocate of peace and reconciliation in the region, working with Arab writers.

He was "discovered" in 1965 by Ted Hughes, who later translated several of Amichai's books.

"He should have won the Nobel Prize in any of the last 20 years," wrote Jonathan Wilson in The New York Times (December 10, 2000), "but he knew that as far as the Scandinavian judges were concerned, and whatever his personal politics, which were indubitably on the dovish side, he came from the wrong side of the stockade."


Contents

[edit] Works in English

  • A Life of Poetry, 1948-1994. Selected and translated by Benjamin and Barbara Harshav. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
  • Amen. Translated by the author and Ted Hughes. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
  • Even a Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers: Recent Poems. Selected and translated by Barbara and Benjamin Harshav. New York: HarperPerennial, 1991.
  • Exile at Home. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
  • Great Tranquility: Questions and Answers. Translated by Glenda Abramson and Tudor Parfitt. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
  • Love Poems: A Bilingual Edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1981.
  • Not of this Time, Not of this Place. Translated by Shlomo Katz. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.
  • On New Year’s Day, Next to a House Being Built: A Poem. Knotting [England]: Sceptre Press, 1979.
  • Open Closed Open: Poems. Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld. New York: Harcourt, 2000. (Shortlisted for the 2001 International Griffin Poetry Prize)
  • Poems of Jerusalem: A Bilingual Edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
  • Selected Poems. Translated by Assia Gutmann. London: Cape Goliard Press, 1968.
  • Selected Poems. Translated by Assia Gutmann and Harold Schimmel with the collaboration of Ted Hughes. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971.
  • Selected Poems. Edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. London: Faber & Faber, 2000.
  • Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Edited and translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Newly revised and expanded edition: Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
  • Songs of Jerusalem and Myself. Translated by Harold Schimmel. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
  • Time. Translated by the author with Ted Hughes. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
  • Travels. Translated by Ruth Nevo. Toronto: Exile Editions, 1986.
  • Travels of a Latter-Day Benjamin of Tudela. Translated by Ruth Nevo. Missouri: Webster Review, 1977.
  • The World Is a Room and Other Stories. Translated by Elinor Grumet. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1984.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Lapon-Kandeslshein, Essi. To Commemorate the 70th Birthday of Yehuda Amichai: A Bibliography of His Work in Translation. Ramat Gan (Israel): Institute of the Translation of Hebrew Literature, 1994.

[edit] See also

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

[edit] External links

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