Jan 19
SPECIAL PROLOGUE
ISRAELI AUTHORS CONNECT OVER THE OCEAN
Sunday, Jan 19, 1:00pm $18 Buy tickets
Moderator: Judith Paltin
MAYA ARAD / The Hebrew Teacher Translated by Jessica Cohen
Three Israeli women, affected by immigration to the US, seek to overcome crises.
Ilana is a veteran college Hebrew instructor who has built her life around her career. When a young Hebrew literature professor joins the faculty, she finds his post-Zionist politics pose a threat to her life’s work. Miriam, whose son left Israel to make his fortune in Silicon Valley, pays an unwanted visit to meet her new grandson and discovers cracks in the family’s perfect façade. Efrat, another Israeli in California, is determined to help her daughter navigate the challenges of middle school, and crosses forbidden lines when she follows her into the minefield of social media.
In these three stirring novellas—comedies of manners with an ambitious blend of irony and sensitivity—celebrated Israeli author Maya Arad probes the demise of idealism and the generation gap that her heroines must confront.
MAYA ARAD is considered one of the best Israeli novelists of her generation. She is the author of eleven books of Hebrew fiction. For the past 20 years Maya has lived in California where she is writer in residence at Stanford University’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies.
ESHKOL NEVO / Inside Information Translated by Sondra Silverston
From the internationally bestselling author of Three Floors Up and The Last Interview, Eshkol Nevo’s darkest, most thrilling novel of psychological suspense weaves together three turbulent and unconventional love stories, diving deep into the enigma that lies at the heart of all intimacy, whether between a man and a woman, a parent and a child, or a person and what they’ve lost.
A honeymoon in South America that should have been romantic becomes more nightmarish by the minute. A senior doctor at a Tel Aviv hospital feels a powerful, inexplicable urge to protect a young female resident who has recently joined the internal medicine department. A married couple goes out for their regular Saturday morning walk in the orchards on the outskirts of town. The man walks back into the orchard for a moment—and disappears without a trace.
ESHKOL NEVO (appearing on Zoom) is one of Israel’s most successful living writers. His novels Homesick, Three Floors Up and The Last Interview have been bestsellers in Israel and widely translated. Nevo runs the largest private creative writing school in Israel and is a mentor to many Israeli writers.
JUDITH PALTIN is an Associate Professor of English at UBC.
SPONSORED BY JULIE and MICHAEL SEELIG