What is the significance of literature in threatening times? Zeruya Shalev experienced how October 7th and the subsequent Gaza war called her literary writing into question.
Image gallery
Her novels are universal love stories. But haven't the beauty and pull of her sensual, vivid language, her tension-filled inner worlds always been political? Since Love Life (published in 1997), they have reflected Jewish Israeli society.
The suicide attack that she survived in front of her parents' house in Jerusalem became the subject of her prose, and in other books she has been about military service and the independence fighters. How much has the Middle East conflict, which existed from the beginning, influenced her novels? How does she, who never saw herself as a political writer, look back today on her own work as a writer who carries Israeli society within her?
Did the Middle East conflict take on a new dimension for her after October 7th? Has something happened that has prevented her from continuing to write? Her everyday writing routine no longer exists. She prefers to demonstrate alone for twelve hours in front of Netanyahu's house, writes eulogies in the shelter when there is an air raid, bakes cakes for soldiers and writes articles about the situation in Israel for international newspapers.
Zeruya Shalev, born in 1959 in a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee, studied biblical studies and lives with her family in Haifa. Her award-winning trilogy about modern love - Love Life, Man and Woman, Late Family - has been translated into over twenty languages. Her most recent novels were Pain and Fate. Zeruya Shalev is one of the world's most important storytellers of our time.
The event will be held in English.
Additional information
Dates
February 2025
| Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa | Su |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
|
2
| |||||
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
11
|
12
|
13
|
14
|
15
|
16
|
17
|
18
|
19
|
20
|
21
|
22
|
23
|
24
|
25
|
26
|
27
|
28
|
