Joanna Chen – författare

This poetic collection is an honest and deeply reflective look at life overshadowed by disputed settlements and political upheaval in the Israeli−Palestinian conflict. Yonatan Berg is a poet from Israel and the youngest person ever awarded the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize. This collection brings together the best poems from his three published collections in Hebrew, deftly translated by Joanna Chen. His poetry recounts his upbringing on an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and service in a combat unit of the Israeli military, which left him with post-traumatic stress disorder. He grapples with questions of religion and tradition, nationalism, war, and familial relationships. The book also explores his conceptual relationship with Biblical, historical, and literary characters from the history of civilization, set against a backdrop of the Mediterranean landscape. Berg shares an insider’s perspective on life in Israel today.

The paths of two women from different generations cross in this nuanced, heartfelt novel that explores Zionist extremism in 1940s Palestine and the divides in present-day Israel.When Atara’s elderly father dies, he leaves behind a host of unanswered questions about his violent past and his strained relationship with his daughter. Yet one of their final meetings seems to provide a key to understanding: he mistakes Atara for his first wife, Rachel, revealing a warmth and kindness she had never seen in him. Atara sets out to find Rachel and uncover this long-buried chapter of his life. Why did their marriage end abruptly in 1948, after only one year? How were they changed by fighting together in the underground to establish the State of Israel? Atara’s encounter with Rachel will upend her own life and that of her family, sparking an uncontainable cascade of events. As their history is exposed, it illuminates but also casts a pall on the present and the future, confronting each character with dilemmas of fate, control, responsibility, faith, disappointment, and love.