Nathan Alterman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Natan Alterman (born August 14, 1910, Warsaw - died March 28, 1970, Israel) was an Israeli poet, journalist, and translator.

He was born in Warsaw, and moved to Tel Aviv in 1925, where he continued his studies at the Herzliya Hebrew High School. His first published book of poetry was Kokhavim Bakhuts ("Stars Outside"), published in 1938. According to Benjamin Harshav, this volume, "with its neo-romantic themes, highly charged texture, and metrical virtuosity, immediately established him as a major force."

His next major book was Simkhat Aniyim ("The Joy of the Poor") (1941), which many regard as his magnum opus. This is a kaleidoscopic phantasmagoria consisting of 31 interconnected poems, all from the viewpoint of the ghost of a dead man obsessed with the living woman he loves - a reversal of the Orpheus and Eurydice story. The dead man wants to protect his living love from war and poverty, but more than anything he wants to drag her into his world. His plans are continually frustrated. The light from a humble candle is enough to drive him back. The story reads like a supernatural thriller, but the rhyme and the meters are regular and elegant.

In 1942, Alterman wrote an angry poem in which Jewish children who have been murdered in the Holocaust give sarcastic thanks to God for choosing them.

Alterman translated Shakespeare, Molière and Racine into Hebrew, as well as Yiddish and Russian writers. He wrote the lyrics of the famous song Kalaniyot, sung by Shoshana Damari.

Alterman won the Bialik Prize in 1957 and the Israel Prize in 1968.

After the Six-Day War, Alterman criticized David Ben-Gurion for being too willing to give up the occupied territories in return for a peace agreement.

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

[edit] Bibliography

  • 1938: Stars Outside (poetry)
  • 1941: Joy of the Poor (poetry)
  • 1944: Plague Poems
  • 1948 and 1954: The Seventh Column (two volumes)
  • 1957: City of the Dove

[edit] External links

This Israeli biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
 This article about a Middle Eastern writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.