Shows
MQR SoundSummer 2025 | Marcela Sulak Reads TalismansA note about the work "Talismans" from Marcela Sulak for the Michigan Quarterly Review's Summer 2025 issue: I had been reading the poetry of Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said Esber), the Syrian poet, and one day came upon a passionate and beautiful poem called "Talismans," which describes a yearning for love. Its warmth and quotidian language, its organic materials, invited me to imagine married love in which the wife responds to the joys and challenges of living with her husband through the language of talismans.
2025-08-2502 min
Rattle Poetryep. 127 - Marcela SulakMarcela Sulak returns to share her work as a translator! Marcela has published four titles with Black Lawrence Press–three poetry collections, including City of Skypapers (2021), Decency (2015) and Immigrant (2010), as well as her lyric memoir, Mouth Full of Seeds (2020). She’s co-edited with Jacqueline Kolosov the 2015 Rose Metal Press title Family Resemblance. An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. Sulak, who translates from the Hebrew, Czech, and French, is a 2019 NEA Translation Fellow, and her fourth book-length translation of poetry: Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, was nominated for the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Tran...
2022-01-162h 25
Rattle Poetryep. 107 - Marcela SulakMarcela Sulak has published four titles with Black Lawrence Press–three poetry collections, including City of Skypapers (2021), Decency (2015) and Immigrant (2010), as well as her lyric memoir, Mouth Full of Seeds (2020). She’s co-edited with Jacqueline Kolosov the 2015 Rose Metal Press title Family Resemblance. An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. Sulak, who translates from the Hebrew, Czech, and French, is a 2019 NEA Translation Fellow, and her fourth book-length translation of poetry: Twenty Girls to Envy Me: Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, was nominated for the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation (University of Texas Press). Her essays have appeared in T...
2021-08-222h 14
Israel in Translation“The Children I Will Never Have”Marcela highlights poetry from the latest issue of The Ilanot Review which, in collaboration with Granta Hebrew, published English translations of up and coming poets and writers, most of whom are featured for the very first time. Text: “And I Begin to Confess” by Salih Habib, translated by Christine Khoury Bishara. The Ilanot Review “The Children I Will Never Have” by Liat Rosenblatt, translated by Jane Medved. The Ilanot Review “Rivka Speaks” by Ori Ferster, translated by Marcela Sulak. The Ilanot Review “I am the one who’s free” by Dareen...
2020-02-2607 minIsrael in TranslationWelcoming in the Ushpizin: Poems for SukkotWe’re currently in the days of Sukkot, in which Jews everywhere dwell (or at least take their meals) in a temporary structure called a Sukkah to commemorate the forty years of wandering in the desert, and also because Sukkot is an agricultural festival as well, and in ancient times people lived in temporary shelters as they harvested. One of the customs of Sukkot is inviting guests for meals into the Sukkah, close friends or needy strangers, as well as the supernatural —“Ushpizin” is Aramaic for “guests.” Today we’ll hear poems that feature these ushpizin, from...
2019-10-1610 minIsrael in TranslationAnne Frank: 'Young and Strong and Living Through a Big Adventure'Before she died in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, Anne Frank said: “Despite everything, I believe that people are, at heart, really good.” In honor of Holocaust Memorial Day, host Marcela Sulak takes a fresh look at the young diarist whose words inspired the world. Texts: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. By Anne Frank. Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler. Translated by Susan Massotty. Bantam Books. Music: The Whole Story Soundtrack: Epilogue. Composed by Graeme Revell and Orchestrated by Tim Simonec.
2019-05-0107 minIsrael in TranslationDinner with JoachimOn this episode of Israel in Translation, Marcela reads three of the six parts of Sharron Hass’s long poem “Dinner With Joachim,” which appears in the most recent issue of the journal Two Lines. “Dinner with Joachim” is from the collection Daylight, which is a critical inquiry into light as the root of rational thought. Text: Sharron Hass, “Dinner with Joachim” translated by Marcela Sulak. Two Lines 29
2018-10-1710 minIsrael in TranslationFarewell to the Alexandrian SummerThis episode originally aired Oct. 14th, 2015. In this episode, host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from Yitzhak Gormezano Goren's Alexandrian Summer, his first novel to be translated into English. In this semi-autobiographical work, Robby, aged ten and accompanied by his parents, leaves his home in Alexandria in 1951 to rejoin his two brothers who had already moved to Israel. In this extract, three generations of the family are sitting together in their home in Alexandria, reading a letter from Robby's brothers about what life is like in Israel. Robby's grandmother thinks it sounds a little primitive:
2018-10-0308 minIsrael in TranslationI, Kohelet, Son of David, King in JerusalemIt’s Sukkot—which lasts seven days in Israel and eight days outside of Israel. A sukkah is the temporary dwelling in which farmers would live during harvesting in ancient days. Throughout the holiday, meals are eaten inside the sukkah and some choose to sleep there. During Sukkot, it is customary to read Kohelet, or Ecclesiastes, to remind us how fleeting life is, and that we should seek a deeper meaning besides the fulfillment of material goods. No one knows for sure who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, but it has been traditionally attributed to King Solomon. Orit...
2018-09-2607 minIsrael in TranslationPoems of Isaac for Rosh Hashanah 5779Next week, from Sunday night until Wednesday at sunset, we celebrate Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year. This year, Marcela focuses on the figure of Isaac, son of Abraham, because the Torah readings for both days of the holiday focus on Sarah’s conceiving and giving birth to Isaac, Hagar’s banishment into the desert, and also on the binding of Isaac on Mount Moriah. Text: Amir Gilboa, “Isaac,” translated by Arieh Sachs in The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself, ed. Stanley Burnshaw, T. Carmi, et. al. “Sarah Laughed Again,” and “Isaac in Reverse” from...
2018-09-0508 minIsrael in TranslationYour ID, Haji: Preparations for RamadanIn honor of the holy month of Ramadan observed by Muslims worldwide, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay by Iman Jmal, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University. Jmal is from Jatt in northern Israel and she writes about preparing a Ramadan meal with her mother, the shopping for which they must travel through a checkpoint. Music: Approaching the Bridge – The Bridge Project Notre Wagon – The Bridge Project
2018-05-1607 minIsrael in TranslationA Night to Remember on the Road to IndependenceIn continuation of the celebrations surrounding Israel’s Independence Day, host Marcela Sulak reads from Amos Oz’s iconic description of the events surrounding the struggle for Israeli independence. Text: Amos Oz, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Translated by Nicholas De Lange. Harcourt, Inc., 2003. Music: Ofra Haza – Eli Eli (lyrics by Hannah Szenes) City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra – Hatikvah This episode originally aired April 23, 2015.
2018-04-2508 minIsrael in TranslationPoems of Holocaust RemembranceIn honor of Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel - host Marcela Sulak reads poetry by Paul Celan, including his famous “Death Fugue.” Paul Celan was born Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Czernowitcz in 1920. The death of his parents in the Holocaust, and his imprisonment in a Romanian work camp are the defining forces in his poetry and use of language. Celan wrote in German. According to Pierre Joris, who translated Celan’s later poetry, he “harbored feelings of intense estrangement from the language and thus set about creating his own language through a “dismant...
2018-04-1107 minIsrael in TranslationThe Woman from Nazareth: Dan Banaya-Seri's “Birds of the Shade”Host Marcela Sulak reads from a folkloric-infused story by the Jerusalem-born writer Dan Banaya-Seri, in which a simple Jewish man uses his minimal understanding of Christmas to try to make sense of his marital obligations. Text: “Birds of the Shade,” by Dan Banaya-Seri. Translated by Betsy Rosenberg. In Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing. Ed. Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights Books. 1996. Music: Silent Night by George Martinos Birds Chirping by Alexander
2017-12-2009 minIsrael in TranslationNew Beginnings: Poetry for the High HolidaysTomorrow is the last day of the 2017 high holiday season, which began with Rosh Hashanah and ends with sukkot and Simchat Torah. This year, host Marcela Sulak wraps up the holidays with a selection of poetry from various poets. Text: “On the Eve of the Holiday,” by Hava Pinhas-Cohen, translated by Sharon Hart-Green, in “Bridging the Divide.” Syracuse University Press, 2015. “The Illustrated Bible,” by Meir Wieseltier, translated by Shirley Kaufman with the author, in “The Flower of Anarchy: Selected Poems.” University of California Press, 2003. Music: Dunet by The Bridge Project
2017-10-1104 minIsrael in Translation"Swede Dreams" are Made of ThisThis past Shabbat was also Yom Kippur, which is the writer Etgar Keret’s favorite holiday. This week, host Marcela Sulak reads his piece, “Swede Dreams,” originally published in The Tablet, and which you can find in his memoir, “The Seven Good Years,” translated by Sondra Sondra Silverston. It is about Keret’s 2009 visit to Sweden, just before Yom Kippur. Here is an excerpt: The Swedes listened and were fascinated. The thought of a day on which no motorized vehicles drive through the cities, people walk around without their wallets and all the stores are closed, a da...
2017-10-0405 minIsrael in TranslationSpecial: Children's Book RecommendationsHost Marcela Sulak's daughter, Amalia, gives her top three children's book recommendations for the holidays.
2017-09-2702 minIsrael in TranslationFear and Glory: Rosh Hashanah's "Unetanneh Tokef"Today’s episode is about the story behind the prayer we most usually associate with Rosh Hashanah, “Unetanneh Tokef.” We don’t know who wrote the poem, although it’s attributed to an 11th century sage who lived in Germany. Modern scholars say the prayer is much older than originally believed, perhaps as early as the 8th century. Host Marcela Sulak explains the legend behind this piece of liturgy from the high holiday services and reads the prayer for the new year. Music: “ונתנה תוקף” by סא”ל שי אברמסון & המקהלה והתזמורת הפילהרמונית אס.אף.ווי Text: Unetanneh Tokef (Wikipedia)
2017-09-2005 minIsrael in TranslationSymbol and Struggle: Poetry from Eli EliahuEli Eliahu is a poet who lives in Ramat-Gan. Recently, his work has begun to be translated and published into English. Eliahu’s work can be playful and fanciful, but it is also socially engaged. He has described his poetry as “a documentation of the struggle of the individual against [the] background” of “a very stressed, crowded, violent and noisy country.” Eliahu has published two highly praised books in Hebrew, “I, and Not an Angel” (2008) and “City and Fears” (2011). He is the recipient of the 2014 Levi Eshkol Prime Minister’s Poetry Prize and writes for Haaretz on poetry and culture. Host Marcela...
2017-09-1307 minIsrael in TranslationFrom A to Z and Everything in Between: "Letters" PoetryThis week, host Marcela Sulak features Israeli poetry from the current issue of a special international journal based in Israel called The Ilanot Review. Each issue is themed, and the current issue is called “Letters.” It covers all aspects of letters, from the alphabet, to the epistolary. The Ilanot Review is edited by alumni and faculty from the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University publishes an expanse of writers in English translation and in English originals. Music: Avdei Zman by Etti Ankri Text: Yonathan Berg, “To My Mother,” translated by Joann...
2017-09-0608 minIsrael in TranslationThe Other World in "The World of the End"These hot weeks of summer, host Marcela Sulak will be suggesting some good beach reading, such as Ofir Touche Gafla’s novel The World of the End, translated by Mitch Ginsburg, and published in English 2015. The book won the 2005 Geffen Award for the best fantasy/science fiction novel of the year and the 2006 Kugel Award for Hebrew literature. Gafla teaches creative writing in the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. Music:A Musical Joke K522 by Mozart Text: Gafla, Ofir Touché. The World of the End. Translated by Mitch Ginsburg. Tom...
2017-08-2308 minIsrael in TranslationStudies in Possibility and Details of Reality: Adi SorekAdi Sorek is the author of Sometimes You Lose People (which won the 2013 Goldberg Prize), Internal Tourism, Seven Matrons, Spaces, and new novel, Nathan. Her work is described as subtle and musical, a study in a possibility of lingering in intermediate zones and looking at the tiny details that comprise the reality of being and the fabric of the personal, familial, and public. Host Marcela Sulak reads two pieces of Sorek’s work on today’s episode. Music: Missing You by The Bridge Project Ocean sounds by mysoundeffect.com
2017-08-0909 minIsrael in TranslationYehezkel Kedmi's "My People, Knowledge, and Me"Host Marcela Sulak reads a long poem by Yehezkel Kedmi, called "My People, Knowledge, and Me," translated by Ammiel Alcalay. Kedmi was born in Jerusalem and spent much of his youth and adult life on the streets. He is an autodidact, expanding his range of interests while working as a night watchman at Hebrew University. Text: Yehezkel Kedmi, “My People, Knowledge, and Me,” translated by Ammiel Alcalay in Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing. Edited by Ammiel Alcalay. City Lights Books, 1996.
2017-08-0206 minIsrael in TranslationNothing But the Truth: Yael Dayan's "Transitions"Yael Dayan’s memoir, Transitions: Close Up, translated by Maya Klein, is about losses and regrets, with fine focus on the detailed physical world. Dayan is the oldest child of the late Moshe Dayan, the moody and enigmatic hero of the Six Days’ War, revered as the symbol of the national and military rebirth of the Jewish people, yet reviled as Defense Minister during the 1973 Yom Kippur War for Israel’s failures. Host Marcela Sulak reads from the preface and a favorite passage on today’s episode. Text: Transitions: Close Up by Yael Dayan, translated by Maya Klein...
2017-07-2607 minIsrael in TranslationThere's No Place Like Home: Eshkol Nevo's "Homesick"Eshkol Nevo’s first novel, Homesick, is the engrossing, interwoven story of an apartment community, told from about 8 different first-person perspectives, and a third-person omniscient narrator, as well. The novel was awarded the Book Publishers Association Gold Prize (2005), among other prizes. it was translated by Sondra Silverstein and published in English in 2009. Host Marcela Sulak reads two passages from Homesick on today’s episode. Text: Homesick by Nevo Eshkol. Translated by Sondra Silverstein. Vintage Books,2009 Music: The Night Brings The Morning by The Bridge Project Nikriz Peşrev by Derya Türkan
2017-07-0508 minIsrael in TranslationHistory Made Modern: A Folktale from S.Y. AgnonCelebrated Israeli author and Nobel Prize laureate S.Y. Agnon wrote his first novella And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight over 100 years ago. It has been translated for the first time into English by Michael Kramer and is newly published with Toby Press. Host Marcela Sulak reads the opening of this folktale that still bears lessons for us in the modern era. Text: And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight, by S. Y. Agnon, translated by Michael Kramer. Toby Press, 2017. Music: Yiddish Hora - A Heymish Freylekhs - The Chicago Klezmer Ensemble
2017-06-2807 minIsrael in TranslationA Fairy Tale: Emile Habibi’s "Saraya, The Ogre’s Daughter"Part memoir, part fairy tale, and part political commentary and history, Emile Habibi’s Saraya, The Ogre’s Daughter: A Palestinian Fairy Tale opens on a moonless night in the summer of 1983, on a boulder off the shore of what was once al-Zeeb, a Palestinian village north of Akko. The narrator glimpses a mysterious female figure who saves him from death, and in the story that follows, he tries to discover who she is. He calls her 'Saraya,' the flesh-and-blood beloved of his childhood, the daughter his uncle Ibrahim adopted, who shares a name with a fairy tale hero...
2017-06-2110 minIsrael in TranslationPower, Politics, and Poetry from Meir WieseltierIn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads two pieces from award-winning poet Meir Wieseltier's collection The Flower of Anarchy. His works in this collection, translated by Shirley Kaufman with the author, cover 40 years of history and yet maintain their power over time. Shaped by his early experiences of war and conflict, Wieseltier's voice is bold and unflinching. Text: The Flowers of Anarchy, Selected Poems by Meir Wieseltier. Translated by Shirley Kaufman with the author. University of California Press, 1997. Music: Faran Ensemble Musica Judia - The Best Nigun Ever
2017-06-1407 minIsrael in TranslationYour ID, Haji: Preparations for RamadanIn honor of the holy month of Ramadan observed by Muslims worldwide, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay by Iman Jmal, a graduate student at Bar-Ilan University. Jmal is from Jatt in northern Israel and she writes about preparing a Ramadan meal with her mother, the shopping for which they must travel through a checkpoint. Here is an excerpt from her story "The Meal": "When I call upon the soldiers and say that Mom forgot her ID, they get angry. One soldier says "Then go back home and find your mom's ID and she will...
2017-06-0707 minIsrael in TranslationMarking Shavuot With Michal Govrin's "The Name"This week Jews celebrate Shavuot, the celebration of harvest and receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. To commemorate the festival, host Marcela Sulak reads from Israeli author Michal Govrin's novel The Name in Barbara Harshav's translation. Shavuot is a corollary to Passover, when Jews begin counting the seven weeks of Omer. In the story, that tradition is mentioned as its main character Amalia, a weaver and daughter of Holocaust survivors, takes refuge in an ultra-orthodox seminary. Here is an excerpt from Govrin's novel: "Sometimes it seems as if nothing had ever happened, as if everything were...
2017-05-3105 minIsrael in TranslationA Melodious Pair: Batsheva Dori-Carlier and Umm KulthumOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads poems written by Batsheva Dori-Carlier from her debut collection Soul Search, which won the 2015 Helicon Ramy Ditzanny Prize for emerging authors. Batsheva Dori-Carlier was born in Jerusalem to parents who left Iraq in the 1950s. For 18 years, she worked as a macrobiotics teacher, chef and consultant in Israel, Belgium, Germany and England. Critics say her poetry "lifts life situations into the realm of art.” Here is an excerpt from Neve Shalom, about an intentional community jointly established by Jewish and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv-J...
2017-05-1708 minIsrael in TranslationA Night to Remember on the Road to IndependenceThis episode originally aired on April 23, 2015. This is how Amos Oz, in his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, describes what happened the night the UN voted to establish a Jewish state: "... my father said to me as we wandered there, on the night of November 29, 1947, me riding on his shoulders among rings of dancers and merrymakers, not as though he was asking me but as though he knew and was hammering in what he knew with nails: Just you look, my boy, take a very good look, son, take it all in, because you...
2017-05-0309 minIsrael in TranslationSitting With Strangeness: A Conversation With Adriana X. JacobsOn this episode, host Marcela Sulak interviews Adriana X. Jacobs about her work translating Vietnamese-Israeli author Vaan Nguyen. Jacobs is an Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature at the University of Oxford and recipient of a 2015 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her translation of The Truffle Eye, Nguyen's debut collection. Sulak and Jacobs discuss Vaan Nguyen's unique life story, the relationship between translator and writer, and Radiohead. Here is an excerpt from Jacobs' translation of the poem Mekong River: "Tonight I moved between three beds like I was sailing on the Mekong an...
2017-04-2620 minIsrael in TranslationBilingual Pen Friends, Translation AmissHost Marcela Sulak breaks 'Israel in Translation' custom by devoting this episode to Nell Zink's English language novel, Sailing Toward the Sunset by Avner Shats. Nell Zink, an American, began a correspondence with Avner Shats after she moved to Israel in 1997. Zink was unable to read Shats' Hebrew, but she resolved to write a book that would mirror his remarkable style. For fifteen years, Shats was the only reader of her literary output. Zink once said, "Avner and I just began writing for each other. The first thing I wrote for him was a novel called Sailing Towards the S...
2017-04-1908 minIsrael in TranslationTradition Distorted: S.Y. Agnon's Passover TaleJews ushered in 8 days of Passover with the Seder on Monday night. The holiday has often been misunderstood throughout the non-Jewish world. On this episode, host Marcela Sulak reads excerpts from S.Y. Agnon's story The Tale of Little Rabbi Gadiel, a bizarre account of Jewish blood libel occurring around Passover. The story is translated by Evelyn Abel and is from the Agnon collection Forevermore & Other Stories, edited by Jeffrey Saks. Here is an excerpt from The Tale of Little Rabbi Gadiel: "One day several of the wickedest men of the nations of the world w...
2017-04-1208 minIsrael in TranslationStraight from the Source: Amalia Sulak’s Young Reader RecsCurrently out of school for the Pesach holiday, Israel in Translation host Marcela Sulak's daughter Amalia dishes out some reading recommendations to her fellow younger lovers of literature. She clearly knows a good story when she reads one; enjoy!
2017-04-0603 minIsrael in Translation"Reckless Love": Poems by Raquel ChalfiAll of Israel celebrated Purim on Sunday, and Monday in Jerusalem. In honor of the festival, host Marcela Sulak reads Raquel Chalfi's work from the recently published collection Reality Crumbs, translated by Tzippi Keller. Here is an excerpt from her poem "Reckless Love," Blues: "I was a little reckless, he was a little reckless in a cheap cafe on the eve of Purim, everyone around us with the face to the TV up on the wall. He broadcast to me on a high frequency. I wanted to broadcast low-low but it...
2017-03-1506 minIsrael in TranslationThe Guardian StateJews everywhere are celebrating Purim this Saturday night, the story of which took place in the ancient Persian Empire. On this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from the essay "Journey to the Land of Israel" by the Iranian writer Jalal Al-e Ahmad. The highly controversial essay is based on his two-week long trip to see Israel in 1963. This is the intro to “Journey to the Land of Israel”: "Jewish rule in the land of Palestine is a guardianship state and not another kind of government. It is the rule of the Children of Israel’s new g...
2017-03-0812 minIsrael in TranslationGirl From the SlumsOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads poems written by Miri ben Simhon and translated by Lisa Katz. Ben Simhon was born January 13, 1950, in Marseille, France. She was the youngest of three children of Moroccan parents from Fez, born on the family's way to the new state of Israel. In April of that year, the family arrived by boat and was settled in a Jerusalem transit camp. In 1955 the children and their mother moved to permanent housing in the Katamonim neighborhood in the western part of the city, home to many poor immigrants. Her four collections of poetry...
2017-03-0110 min
Oxford Comparative Criticism and Translation (OCCT)Translation as AfterlifeIn this seminar, Marcela Sulak (Bar Ilan University) and Adriana X. Jacobs (Oriental Studies) will explore the possibility of translation as “afterlife” through a discussion of the Hebrew poets Orit Gidali and Hezy Leskly. Marcela Sulak’s talk is entitled “Translating Ghosts and Unborn Souls: When Love Poetry is Political”. Adriana X. Jacobs talk is “Hezy Leskly’s Zombie Memories”.
2017-02-2447 minIsrael in TranslationWriting on the walls of MusraraOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak takes us on a small excursion to Musrara, a neighborhood in Jerusalem, with poems by Liat Kaplan as our guide. Musrara was founded by upper class Christian Arabs in the late 19th century when people began to live outside the Old City of Jerusalem. During the War of Independence, the residents fled or were expelled. The neighborhood - inhabited by new olim from North Africa -was frequently exposed to snipers until 1967. In 1971, a second generation of Mizrahi Jews founded the Israeli Black Panther movement in the town. Today, the neighborhood is a s...
2017-02-1509 minIsrael in TranslationThe fig tree with gnats: A short story by Avner ShatsOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads a selection of Avner Shat's short story, "Figs," which was published in his first book, Printed Circuits in 1994. Here is an excerpt from the story: "The years went by, and not a single daughter came to the world. The women were getting older, fewer babies were born, and I was the last girl born here. There is no girl younger than me in the village, no sister nor niece, and today I shall marry a man, and no one is really sure whether to be happy or sad, for n...
2017-02-0808 minIsrael in TranslationAt the End of Sleep, between worldsOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads selections of poet Tal Nitzán's book At the End of Sleep. It's an anthology of her poems, translated from the Hebrew by Tal Nitzán, Vivian Eden, Irit Sela, Aliza Raz, and Rachel Tzvia Back. Here is an excerpt from her poem "In the Time of Cholera": "Facing one another we turn our backs to the world’s calamities. Behind our closed eyes and curtains, both heat and war erupted at once. The heat will calm down first, the faint breeze won’t bring b...
2017-02-0106 minIsrael in TranslationIbn Gabirol, Vulture in a CageOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak returns to the work of Ibn Gabirol, one of the outstanding figures during the Jewish Golden Age in Moorish Spain. She reads a new edition of his work called Vulture in a Cage, published in 2016 by Archipeligo Books. The translation by Raymond P. Scheindlin interestingly adheres to Gabirol's original rhyme scheme and rhythm of the Hebrew. Here is an excerpt from one of his poems depicting the relationship between God and the speaker as an erotic relationship: "Greetings to you, red-cheeked friend, greetings to you from the girl...
2017-01-2508 minIsrael in TranslationOn childhood to parenting, through space and timeOn this week's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads poetry by Maya Tevet Dayan. Published in both Rachel Tzvia Back's translation and forthcoming translation by Ayelet Rose, they are Dayan's first poems to appear in English. Born in Tel Aviv, Maya Tevet Dayan grew up in Hod Hasharon and received her Ph.D at Tel Aviv University. Dayan's landscapes, covering childhood to adulthood and parenting, are characterized by attention to time and space. Here is a segment from her poem, Tides. "Through all the births, through all the women who birthed one another until you were bor...
2017-01-1809 minIsrael in TranslationTraveling in psalms with Yonatan BergOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads the work of Yonatan Berg. He is youngest recipient ever to win the Yehuda Amichai Poetry Prize, and his work has only begun to be published in Joanna Chen’s English translation. As Chen points out, Yonatan Berg’s poetry strides the lines that divide this country in so many ways, with honesty and compassion. "On Sabbath afternoon the air is quiet. We stroll towards the Sephardi synagogue, the hills filled with afternoon and beyond, the Dead Sea shimmers, burning with salt, thick with death. Rabbi Avi...
2017-01-1109 minIsrael in TranslationRevisiting Yoram Kaniuk, Between Life and DeathOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads Between Life and Death, the final novel of Yoram Kaniuk, who died in 2013. The celebrated book is a type of auto-fiction in which real life and memoir blend with style and language and humor. It's a stream of consciousness journey that takes place when the narrator, also named Yoram Kaniuk, lies in coma after surgery. "After these things—after disease and after death and after pain and after laughter and after betrayal and after old age and after grace and love and after a foolish son the heaviness of his moth...
2017-01-0408 minIsrael in TranslationWhere Jesus walked, told through 'Arabesques'This week we're broadcasting a timely re-run of a past episode. As Christians all over the world celebrate Christmas, we travel to the Galilee through the eyes of the novelist Anton Shammas, a native of the Galilee. In honor of Nazareth, the childhood home of Jesus, host Marcela Sulak reads three excerpts from Shammas' novel Arabesques, which has been called, “a history of its author’s youth and the memoir of a family and a fabled region - Galilee.” One of the most striking features of the novel is how the life of Jesus and the miracles of Nazareth ar...
2016-12-2808 minIsrael in TranslationBrimming with kisses: Poetry by Hadas GiladOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads the poetry of Hadas Gilad, all translated by Lisa Katz. Hadas Gilad was born in Tel Aviv in 1975. She has published one book of poems, "Each and Every Light," and has translated the poetry of Lalla, a 14th century Hindu mystical poet from Kashmir. "His lips - a soft gate Yes a hedgerow And I was drawn between them to roar within To be close to his voice To reside like this: In the darkness of the cave To hear the taps of swallowed sa...
2016-12-2106 minIsrael in TranslationIn the dim wine cellar: Poems by Tamir GreenbergOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads poems about death and dying by Tamir Greenberg, translated by Tzippi Keller and found in Keller's anthology, Poets on the Edge. An Anthology of Contemporary Hebrew Poetry. Here is an exerpt from Greenberg's poem My Grandma Rachel, Age 15: "'Soon, my shadow will strike a small pile of snow, and then I’ll turn fifteen.' 'Sheets,' says the nurse impatiently. 'A pile of sheets.' 'Marius, my love, will come to meet me near the fence of the high-school for girls in Bucharest.' Grandma laug...
2016-12-1406 minIsrael in TranslationRaise the roofOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from David Grossman's newest work, A Horse Walks Into a Bar, which came out in Jessica Cohen's English Translation last month with Jonathan Cape Books in London. The exerpt from the short novel is set in a comedy club in Netanya: "But until midnight… we will raise the roof with jokes and impersonations, with a medley of my shows from the past twenty years, as unannounced in the advertisements, ‘cause it’s not like anyone was going to spend a shekel to promote this gig except with an ad th...
2016-12-0707 minIsrael in Translation"At the edge of a thick forest"On today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from Annna Herman's books "Unicorn" and "The Book of Simple Medicines." They are translated by Adriana X. Jacobs, who finds that "In Herman's work, the comfort of rhyme and meter provide a meaningful contrast to the uncomfortable and disquieting tales and images that Herman composes." "At the end of the blocked path, at the edge of a thick forest, There's a house caught between two flickering flames. Like Red Riding Hood I walk through the dim forest, To my grandmother's house, and the snow falls again. I w...
2016-11-3000 minIsrael in TranslationLife on the kibbutz: A memoir by Yael NeemanOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from the opening of Yael Neeman's 2011 lyrical memoir about life on kibbutz Yehiam in the Galil. It's called "We Were The Future: A Memoir of the Kibbutz," and it came out in October of this year in Sondra Silverston's English translation: "And they were really the best years of our lives, dipped in gold, precisely because we lived in below-zero temperatures in the blazing heat of an eternal sun. We greeted each new day with eagerness and curiosity. We were wide awake in the morning and wide awake at night. We...
2016-11-2309 minIsrael in TranslationYoram Kaniuk and Clara's beautiful lifeOn today's episode, resident storyteller Marcela Sulak reads from Yoram Kaniuk's story "The Beautiful Life of Clara Shiato," translated by Ruvik Danieli and found in the anthology 50 Stories from Israel. Clara raises three children in Greece with a man who escaped from persecutions in Turkey, suffers through the second world war in hiding, and finds passage to Israel after the war to live an impoverished life in Tel Aviv: "She always remembered the hidden fear. When Clara Shiato was twelve years of age, she stood by the window and hung curtains. Before the clowns passed by, on t...
2016-11-1608 minIsrael in Translation"A single big refugee camp"On today's episode, resident literature guru Marcela Sulak reads from the recently published novel Judas by Amos Oz, translated by Nicholas de Lange. Perhaps Israel's best-known author, Oz explores the titular apostle alongside Israeli historical narrative told through sensitive young student Shmuel Ash, an elderly man Gershom Wald, and his daughter-in-law Abravanel. Here is an excerpt from his novel: "Perhaps it really was preferable for what you did here to happen—for tens of thousands to to to the slaughter and for hundreds of thousand to go into exile. The Jews here are actually a single big refugee...
2016-11-0907 minIsrael in TranslationYudit Shahar, poet of the Israeli working classOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads the poetry of Yudit Shahar. Born and raised in the HaTikvah neighborhood of Tel Aviv, she is a special education teacher and mother of two children. She is best known for her concern with economic justice and now lives in Petach Tikvah, Israel. Here is an excerpt from her poem "Brightness": "In the house which was really a shack, in the laundry room, on my fingertips, the sourish smell of work clothes as I look in your pocket for sweet dates that have been forgotten. Brightness, you wa...
2016-11-0208 minIsrael in Translation"Palestine first": The resistance poetry of Samih al-QasimOn today's episode, host Marcela Sulak reads the poetry of Samih al-Qasim. A Druze resident of the village of Rameh in northern Israel, al-Qasim was best known for his nationalist poetry, in which he passionately defended the rights and identity of Israel's Arab minority. Here is an excerpt from his poem "Regardless": "We are equal—in bread, roses, love, and sin, in desiring the wheat stalk that begot a song. We are equal, the people of my land, And I love you without election, without ballot, without adjustment. I love you by con...
2016-10-2611 minIsrael in TranslationPoems of praise from Medieval SpainHost Marcela Sulak reads Hebrew poetry from Medieval Spain to mark the Jewish holidays of Sukkot and Simchat Torah. The latter celebrates the conclusion of the annual cycle of public Torah readings, and the beginning of a new cycle. Thus the reading at the morning service for Simchat Torah is from "Genesis." Here is the end of Yosef Ibn Avitor's poem on the creation of the universe, "Hymn for the New year": "Who hurls ruin upon the strong lest in cruelty they lash out? Who casts fright across the lion before the Ethiopian gnat?...
2016-10-1908 minIsrael in TranslationOn Yom Kippur in tennis shoesTonight the fast of Yom Kippur ended, so this episode centers on the theme of Yom Kippur. Host Marcela Sulak reads selected poems from Yehuda Amichai's long series Jerusalem, 1967, as well as a section from his long, narrative poem The Last Travels of Benjamin of Tudela, which begins: "On Yom Kippur, in tennis shoes, you ran. And with Holy Holy Holy, you jumped up high, higher than anyone, nearly up to the angels on the ceiling. And in the circling of Simchat Torah you circled seven times and seven, and arrived breathless. Like...
2016-10-1208 minIsrael in TranslationHava Pinhas-Cohen: Poems for the month of ElulAs we are in the month of Elul - a month of preparation for the major Jewish holidays - host Marcela Sulak dedicates this week's podcast to poems that give a female insight into the holidays to come: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot. All the poems are by Hava Pinhas-Cohen, here is an excerpt from "Follow the Arrow": "Now in Jerusalem, the Ashkenazi Jews are reciting the Selichot prayers. The Sephardi Jews began three weeks ago, chanting El Malei. Only the lines I left in the margins of pages I keep in drawers
2016-09-2807 minIsrael in TranslationMahmoud Darwish and the song of the oudLast week Muslims celebrated the holiday of Eid al-Adha, which remembers how Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son to God. Muslims believe Abraham's son to be Ishmael (not Isaac, as mentioned in the Bible). In honor of this festival, host Marcela Sulak reads two poems by Mahmoud Darwish. Here is the beginning of "Ismael's Oud": "A mare dances on two strings—that’s how Ismael’s fingers listen to his blood. The villages scatter like poppies in the rhythm. There’s neither night there nor day. Divine tarab touches us. All points rush towards...
2016-09-2108 minIsrael in TranslationWomen's Hebrew Poetry on American ShoresNot all literature published in Hebrew in Israel is written by Israelis. Today, host Marcela Sulak reads the poetry of Annabelle Farmelant, an American poet born and raised in Boston who writes in Hebrew. She was living in Tel Aviv when her books appeared with Kiryat Sefer in Jerusalem in 1960 and 1961. Not surprisingly, much of Farmelant's poetry focuses on language and identity. Here is her poem "Builder": "Though you swam in the sea, you're not like a fish, though you took off in flight, you're not like a bird— The towers of Babel you built wr...
2016-09-1408 minIsrael in TranslationThe wisdom of Meir WieseltierMeir Wieseltier is one of Israel's foremost poets. A winner of the Bialik Prize and the Israel Prize, he has published 13 collections of poetry. In honor of the month of Elul, in which, among religious Jews, the "shofar" horn is blown each day, host Marcela Sulak read's Wieseltier's poem "Wisdom." "The whole of my wisdom contracts to the bulk of a fly on a bright window-pane, what were mountains and vales are but a scratch on glass." Marcela reads several other poems by Wieseltier, which tackle life's painful realities, searching for values in the...
2016-09-0807 minIsrael in TranslationStories not swords in "The Secret Book of Kings"The Secret Book of Kings, the fifth of Yochi Brandes' six novels, appeared last week in English translation. It's the first of the best-selling writer's novels to be translated into English. Brandes retells the stories of the House of Saul and of the northern Kingdom of Israel, stories that were artfully concealed by the House of David and the scribes of the southern Kingdom of Judah. Host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from the first part of the novel, narrated by the child Shelomoam. "The Judeans refuse to accept the superiority and leadership of the tribe of Jos...
2016-08-3105 minIsrael in TranslationThe true story of a made-up Mossad operativeYiftach Atir’s novel, The English Teacher, is newly appeared in English translation this year. Host Marcela Sulak reads some excerpts from the book, including Atir's opening note: "The book you are holding in your hands is the true story of what never happened. This is the story of a Mossad operative. She and others like her operate alone for extended periods of time, deep in enemy countries. Unlike their front-line soldier counterparts, these secret soldiers are armed with nothing but a foreign passport, a fake identity, extensive training, and inexplicable courage." Atir was born in 1...
2016-08-2407 minIsrael in TranslationMosquito: Roy Chen's mini-metamorphosisHost Marcela Sulak reads the short story "Mosquito" by Roy Chen. Set in Tel Aviv on the city's "White Night," it follows an author and his girlfriend as they make their way to an evening of literary readings at a local café-bookstore: "Tel Aviv grinned like a little girl with tooth decay while she puffed on a pipe held in the corner of her mouth. Cars honked, ice cream dribbled, dogs peed on sycamore trees. City flags flew atop balconies. Fireworks were launched into the sky from the beach, lighting up all the air-conditioners, antennas, and s...
2016-08-1710 minIsrael in TranslationBuczacz: A city in its fullness "This is the chronicle of the city of Buczacz, which I have written in my pain and anguish so that our descendants should know that our city was full of Torah, wisdom, love, piety, life, grace, kindness, and charity." So begins Shai Agnon's epic story cycle entitled A City in Its Fullness - a literary memorial to the city of his birth, now called Buchach in Western Ukraine. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Agnon's receipt of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Agnon is the only Hebrew language writer ever to receive the prize), and in ho...
2016-08-1008 minIsrael in TranslationShai Agnon's "Book of the State"Shai Agnon is the only Hebrew-language writer to have received the Nobel Prize in Literature. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Agnon being awarded the prize, Toby Press has been releasing Agnon's work in English translation. Today, host Marcela Sulak reads from Agnon's introduction to the "Book of the State," one of his little-known political satires. "... The State is a metaphysical concept rendered into something physical which feigns meta-physicality. When you attempt to approach it as a meta-physical entity it slips back into physicality; if one considers it in physical terms it suddenly reverts into meta-physicality." ...
2016-08-0307 minIsrael in Translation"Did you pack it yourself?"It's summer holiday season, and most of us will probably be asked when we arrive at the airport, "Did you pack it yourself?" - referring, of course, to our luggage. Israeli poet Orit Gidali answers her interrogation like this: "Of all the questions to ask: Did you pack it yourself? Yes, by myself. It was hard, I said, but it is harder to fear that it will never come. I am not beautiful, you see, and the heart is the size of a fist." Today's podcast features the newly-released...
2016-07-2706 minIsrael in TranslationTahel Frosh and the Mountains of SpainToday, host Marcela Sulak reads the work of Tel Aviv-based poet Tahel Frosh. Her debut poetry collection, from which these poems have been chosen, was published in 2014. Translator Adriana Jacobs calls it one of the most urgent and political books of poetry published in recent years. Here is an excerpt from "The Mountains of Spain": "All of this is so impossible that it holds back thoughts of love and lust and my will to breathe the air after rain so much that I’ll lose myself in a book called Cocaine Nights...
2016-07-2007 minIsrael in TranslationDeath of a Monk: Retelling the Damascus AffairHost Marcela Sulak reads from the novel Death of a Monk by Israeli novelist and playwright Alon Hilu. It's an innovative retelling of the 1840 Damascus Affair, a blood libel against the Jewish community of Damascus, from the perspective of Aslan Farhi, a young Damascene Jew who ends up being at the center of the blood libel accusations. "My happy friend, while I impart the these words to you, and as you record them with your industrious fingers and with expression in your large brown eyes, I would ask your indulgence in reviving for a few moments the for...
2016-07-1407 minIsrael in TranslationThe voices of snipers on the Israel Defense Forces radio stationToday, host Marcela Sulak reads the poetry of Mei-Tal Nadler, whose work distorts and defamiliarizes the Israeli locale in ways that are political, lyrical, and alarming. This is the beginning of "The Voices of Snipers on the Israel Defense Forces Radio Station*": "The voices of snipers can’t be heard over the radio waves of the IDF Station. But they chose songs for us before they left. What songs do snipers like? I focus all my listening on their musical choices, till my focus becomes a gaze. Perhaps that’s how snipers are trained..."
2016-07-0606 minIsrael in TranslationOne Night, MarkovitchLast week we featured Ayelet Gundar-Goshen’s latest book, Waking Lions. This week, host Marcela Sulak reads from Gundar-Goshen’s first novel, the Sapir Prize-winning One Night, Markovitch. The novel opens on the eve of World War II, with a group of young men setting out from Mandate Palestine to participate in fictitious marriages with Jewish girls who wish to escape Europe and reach the Jewish homeland, then under British rule. "He felt Sonya’s entrance into the room before he saw her, because over the last six weeks he had learned to pick out the smell of oranges...
2016-06-2208 minIsrael in TranslationWaking Lions: A story of secrets and extortionHost Marcela Sulak reads from Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's novel Waking Lions, published in English translation in March 2016. The opening of the novel describes the moment when Dr. Eitan Green, who has just come off a 19-hour shift at Beer Sheva Hospital, has an accident... "He is thinking that the moon is the most beautiful he has ever seen when he hits the man. For the first moment after he hits him he’s still thinking about the moon, and then he suddenly stops, like a candle that has been blown out." Gundar-Goshen was born in Israel in 19...
2016-06-1507 minIsrael in TranslationDolly City, where Kafka meets Tel AvivWhen Orly Castel-Bloom’s Dolly City was first published in 1992, the French paper "Le Monde" declared that "Kafka has finally arrived in Tel Aviv." Host Marcela Sulak reads two excerpts from Castel-Bloom's remarkable novel, which was translated into English by Dalya Bilu in 2010. "First of all, I decided I would inoculate the child against as many diseases as possible. I ran outside to buy vaccines against tetanus, whooping cough, diphtheria, polio, measles, jaundice, scarlet fever, small pox, influenza, etc., and I gave them to him all at once—though I knew you shouldn’t do this. I couldn...
2016-06-0106 minIsrael in Translation"Dear Perverts": The poetry of Hezy LesklyPoet, choreographer, and dance critic Hezy Leskly was born in Israel in 1952 to Czech Holocaust survivors. Host Marcela Sulak reads from the only collection of Leskly's poetry to be translated into English, Dear Perverts, translated by Adriana Jacobs. Here is the beginning of the poem "I’m six, on a walk with my parents, Saturday late afternoon": "My father—the hammer poised above the plate, My mother—the snake of love, And I—a girl with a dick; We set out on the path traced with my tongue. When I tried to eat f...
2016-05-2509 minIsrael in TranslationDavid Grossman's "Falling Out of Time"Host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from David Grossman's most recent novel, Falling Out of Time, which is partly a folk tale, partly a play, and partly a novel in verse. In the story, a man known as the "walking man" sets off in search of his dead son, pacing in ever-widening circles around his village and picking up other villagers who've lost their children along the way, like a Pied Piper of bereavement. "TOWN CHRONICLER’S WIFE: As they commingle, so two rivers flow into my confluence. I did not know, not this way, that life in al...
2016-05-1808 minIsrael in TranslationPoet Agi Mishol on "Holocaust, Remembrance, Independence"Agi Mishol's latest book of poetry, Less Like a Dove, is published in English translation this month. Host Marcela Sulak reads a selection of poems from the collection, including "Holocaust, Remembrance, Independence" in honor of Israeli Independence Day, which begins tonight. "How we flew – Not from Gadera to Rehovot or up the Castel en route to Jerusalem, like in those dreams, but outside of the stratosphere: My father, myself and that blurry one called Agnes, who in nineteen fifty changed her name to Agi, and since then this hollow girl has ta...
2016-05-1108 minIsrael in TranslationPoems of Holocaust RemembranceIn honor of Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day in Israel -
host Marcela Sulak reads poetry by Paul Celan, including his famous
"Death Fugue":
"Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at morning and midday we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair
Margareta
Your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air there you
won't lie too...
2016-05-0407 minIsrael in Translation“Gods Change, Prayers are Here to Stay”Today’s Passover-themed podcast is taken from Robert Alter’s new
edition, The Poems of Yehuda Amichai. Host Marcela Sulak
reads excerpts from Amichai’s long poem “Gods Change, Prayers are
Here to Stay.”
"I declare with perfect faith
that prayer preceded God.
Prayer created God,
God created human beings,
human beings create prayers
that create the God that creates human beings."
Listen to last year's Passover podcast, with more Amichai and
more information about the holiday of Passover.
Text:
The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai. Edited by Robert Alt...
2016-04-2706 minIsrael in TranslationSayed Kashua's farewellSayed Kashua, a Palestinian born and raised in Israel, has a lot to say about the importance of stories and the written word. His latest book to be translated into English is a collection of weekly columns that first appeared in Haaretz newspaper. They’ve been translated by Ralph Mandel into a collection called Native. Host Marcela Sulak reads from the final essay in the collection, in which Kashua contemplates his past as the family prepares to move from Israel to the US.
“Don’t come in,” my daughter shouted angrily when I knocked at her door.
I...
2016-04-2009 minIsrael in TranslationVilna My Vilna: Chana-Merka, the FishwifeThis week, we feature a new collection of stories by Abraham Karpinowitz, Vilna My Vilna. Host Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from “Chana-Merka, the Fishwife,” which follows the beginnings of the Max Weinreich Yiddish Institute, today called YIVO and housed in New York. Then in Vilna, Chana-Merka would meet with Dr. Weinreich to hand over lists of "Yiddish pearls" - Yiddish phrases and expressions to be recorded for posterity. Here are some of the Vilna curses Chana-Merka submits to Weinreich:
"May you get a piece of straw in your eye and a splinter in your ear and not know...
2016-04-1309 minIsrael in TranslationThe Beauty Queen of JerusalemHost Marcela Sulak reads an excerpt from Sarit Yishai-Levi's best-selling novel The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, recently published in Anthony Berris’s English translation. The novel spans four generations of Sefardic women whose family traces its history in Israel to the Spanish expulsion, and the story centers around the family’s stall in the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.
"Gabriel returned to the shop. He despised the British more every day. He couldn’t stand their haughty presence as they walked through the market in groups in their pressed uniforms, as if they were the lords of the land. S...
2016-04-0608 minIsrael in TranslationThe Travels of the Last Benjamin of TudelaYehuda Amichai is probably the best known Israeli poet in the world. Today, host Marcela Sulak celebrates the recent publication of Robert Alter’s The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai - the largest collection of Amichai’s poetry published in a single volume to date. Alter claims that a complete edition of Amichai’s poetry would be three times larger.
Marcela reads from the end of an epic, autobiographical poem “The Travels of the Last Benjamin of Tudela”:
"The players sat inside, the talkers on the verandah:half my love, my left hand, a quarter of a friend,
2016-03-2807 minIsrael in TranslationA perfectly modern PurimIn the Bus/Purim Eve:
"Little kids in costume giggle happilyreal flower childrenand Margalit Tzan’ani sings'The Honey in the Groove'"
Today, host Marcela Sulak takes an unusual approach to Purim, reading excerpts from Tikva Levi’s "Purim Sequence," translated by Ammiel Alcalay. We intersperse the first parts of Levi's poem, a Purim bus journey, with excerpts from Itzik Manger’s "Songs of the Megillah" — a retelling of the Purim story in the Book of Esther. Tikva Levi was a feminist activist Mizrahi Jew, born in Ashkelon of Iraqi parents. Sh...
2016-03-2307 minIsrael in TranslationElse Lasker-Schüler's blue pianoAmong the excellent new Israeli books to have appeared in English translation in 2015, is Else Lasker-Schüler’s collected poems, My Blue Piano. Host Marcela Sulak reads several poems from the collection, including the title poem:
"At home I have a blue piano,I, who cannot play a note.
It stands in the gloom of the cellar door,now that the whole world has grown coarse..."
Born in Germany in 1869, Lasker-Schüler became a leader of Berlin's Expressionist movement, coining the name "Blue Rider" for her friend Franz Marc's famous school of pai...
2016-03-1809 minIsrael in TranslationHeathcliff in Tel Aviv: A strange encounterHost Marcela Sulak reads from the opening of Orly Castel-Bloom’s short story, “Heathcliff,” in which a young girl’s crush on the literary figure, Heathcliff, follows her about the city of Tel Aviv. In Castel-Bloom’s signature narrative style, it is difficult to tell reality from imagination, and the results are menacing.
“Smadar trailed along Ibn Gvirol Street. The taste of the cigarette was bitter. She looked around to make sure that nobody could see her and spat a big gob onto the pavement. When she raised her eyes, she turned red. Two eyes were watching her. They were...
2016-03-0907 minIsrael in TranslationLeaving Lebanon: Ron Leshem's "Beaufort"In May 2000, the IDF withdrew from Southern Lebanon and Beaufort Castle, which Israel had held since 1982. Host Marcela Sulak reads from Ron Leshem's novel called "Beaufort" in the English translation (the Hebrew title translates as "If there is a Heaven"). It is written as the diary of Liraz Liberti, the twenty-one-year-old head of a thirteen-man commando team stationed at Beaufort during the last winter of Israeli occupation.
"...We carried out a comprehensive search, circled the place to determine whether terrorists had beaten a path in through the undergrowth, and which route they’d chosen to booby-trap the targ...
2016-03-0206 minIsrael in TranslationThe sound of her stepsThe novelist Ronit Matalon has a new novel published just months ago in English translation, The Sound of Our Steps. Host Marcela Sulak reads an extract from the novel, in which the narrator recalls the nightly ritual of hearing her mother's steps leading up to her dramatic entrance to the house:
"What did she put on her feet back then, which shoes, or to be more precise, how did she prepare for battle, how, with what? That sense of purpose she had, to the last detail, the sacred air of purpose, how she loved what was useful...
2016-02-2407 minIsrael in TranslationThe unspoken languageToday, host Marcela Sulak reads the poetry of Anat Levin, who was born in Israel to a mother of Russian descent from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and a father from Kornitz, Belarus. Her debut book of poems, Revolving Anna, was published in 2008, and won the Ministry of Culture Award for Poetry that year. Here is an excerpt from the poem "Oh Mother":
"And it was said:honour thy father and thy motherand they will honour you with twice as much spankingand with two good blows on the backsideso that thy days will...
2016-01-2709 minIsrael in TranslationCounting the miracles: Hanukkah poetry specialOn Sunday night Jews in Israel and all over the world lit the first candle of eight on their hanukkiot. In honor of the holiday, host Marcela Sulak reads poems about miracles, light, and candles, for instance Ronny Someck's "Poem to a Girl Already Born":
"On the day you were born the workers of joywarmed their hands against the fire, litwith the match of your life.Night after night I am possessed with the sound of your breathas if it were the glimmer of a lighthouse for a sailor who w...
2015-12-0905 minIsrael in TranslationWater, Fire, Earth & Ark: Elements of Salman MasalhaThis week we return to the Druze village of Maghar in the upper Galilee, with the poetry of Salman Masalha. He was born there in 1953, three years after his fellow villager, the poet Naim Araidi, featured in our October 13 podcast. Host Marcela Sulak reads Masalha's elemental sequence of poems on Water, Fire, Earth, and the Ark.
"Fire is a young body.The winds of doubt will not touch it.It refuses to dress in anythingbut black garments.It exists since the beginningon the fruit of the waters."
Masalha has...
2015-11-2507 minIsrael in TranslationRutu Modan's graphic touchThis week host Marcela Sulak features a graphic novel for the first time ever on this podcast - Rutu Modan’s The Property, translated by Jessica Cohen.
It's about an Israeli grandmother and her granddaughter getting to know Warsaw as they try to reclaim a property lost during WWII.
Marcela, with the help of her crew, reads the book's opening scene, set at Ben-Gurion airport, and a later scene in which Mica, the granddaughter, gets to show off her martial arts skills.
Rutu Modan was born in Tel Aviv in 1966, and graduated from the...
2015-08-2006 minIsrael in Translation"The Seven Good Years" Part II: Bombs awayIn our second installment, host Marcela Sulak reads an essay from Etgar Keret's memoir, The Seven Good Years, called "Bombs Away." We hear how Keret and his wife Shira Gefen cope after receiving "inside" reports about an imminent Iranian nuclear attack on Israel.
"Gradually my wife also began to realize the advantages of our shabby existence. After she found a not-exactly-reliable news site warning that Iran might already have nuclear weapons, she decided it was time to stop washing dishes. “There’s nothing more frustrating than getting nuked while you’re putting the soap in the dishwasher,” she explai...
2015-07-0808 minIsrael in TranslationEtgar Keret's "The Seven Good Years": Part IHost Marcela Sulak reads the opening essay from Etgar Keret's memoir The Seven Good Years, about the seven years between the birth of his son and the death of his father. Marcela also explains why, although Keret is Israeli, the book was never published in Hebrew nor released in Israel.
As Keret waits in the hospital for his wife to give birth, he's surrounded by the victims of a terrorist attack that has just occurred, and is pestered by a journalist looking for an "original" reaction to the mass murder.
"Six hours later, a midget with a...
2015-07-0106 minIsrael in TranslationA Tel Aviv beach in winterYou’ve still got time to visit a Tel Aviv beach this winter. To get you in the mood, host Marcela Sulak reads Rachel Chalifi's poem 'Tel Aviv Beach Winter '74,' translated by Alexandra Meiri. Here's an excerpt:
The sun is a faded photo.Shore birds peck greyly at the sand.The muscles of the sea groan.A solitary woman in a nylonscarf. What is she,against a thunderstorm?
Chalfi was born in Tel Aviv, the daughter of two poets. She studied in Jerusalem, then Berkeley, and finally Los An...
2015-02-1107 minIsrael in TranslationOn Hanukkah, kindle a small pillar of fireLast night in Israel we celebrated the first night of Hanukkah: The festival of lights, or the festival of the dedication of the temple.
From dreidels to doughnuts, host Marcela Sulak takes us through the holiday's customs and traditions, and then lets historian Titus Flavius Josephus, born Yosef ben Matityahu, tell the story in his own words.
In Hanukkah's spirit of 'light,' Marcela reads a poem by Admiel Kosman, 'A Small Pillar of Fire,' translated specifically for this podcast by Lisa Katz.
Texts:
Antiquities of the Jews by Fl...
2014-12-1707 minIsrael in TranslationRonny Someck, a poet of Tel AvivHost Marcela Sulak traces the life of poet Ronny Someck, from his origins in Baghdad to Israeli transit camps to Tel Aviv, through his poetry.
Life in the transit camps in the 1950s was difficult, as described in the poem 'Poverty Line,' in which Someck says, "The only line I saw was the horizon and under it everything / looked poor."
He went on to study Hebrew Literature and Philosophy at Tel Aviv University. At 63 he now lives in Ramat Gan, and has been called "a poet of Tel Aviv" for poems like 'Seven Lines on...
2014-12-0306 minIsrael in TranslationThe souvenir shop of Taha Muhammad AliBorn in Saffuriyya in the Galilee, Taha Muhammad Ali settled in Nazareth after the 1948 Arab-Israel war. There, he owned a souvenir shop near the Church of the Annunciation, which became a meeting place for local and visiting writers. Host Marcela Sulak tells Ali's charming fairytale about how his craft was tested by a visitor who came daily to his shop, and had to be bribed with an olive-wood camel to hear Ali's latest poem.
Ali’s poetry is written in literary Arabic, "grounded in the vernacular, and rooted in local custom." He writes long ballads about his lo...
2014-10-1507 min
Red Lion SquareEpisode 17 - John F. Buckley and Marcela SulakPoems by John F. Buckley and Marcela Sulak, with Lizzy Hovanetz of The F Bomb
2010-10-0500 min