Aharon Amir
Encyclopedia
Aharon Amir was an Israeli Hebrew poet, a literary translator and a writer.
, Lithuania
. He moved to Palestine with his family in 1933 and grew up in Tel Aviv
. His father,
Meir Lipec, was later director of the publishing house Am Oved. He attended Gymnasia Herzliya
high school. At the time of the British Mandate in Palestine, while studying Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University, Amir was a member of the Irgun
and Lehi
undergrounds as well as a founding member of the Canaanite movement (canaanism
), which saw Hebrew or Israeli culture as defined by geographical location rather than religious affiliation. Amir was married to Bettine, a poet and painter. He had three children from a previous marriage.
He died of cancer on February 28, 2008, at the age of 85, and left his body to science.
and French
classics by Melville
, Charles Dickens
, Camus
, Lewis Carroll
, Joseph Conrad
and Virginia Woolf
, Edgar Allan Poe
, Ernest Hemingway
, John Steinbeck
, Emily Bronte
and O. Henry
. He also translated works by Winston Churchill
and Charles de Gaulle
. He founded and edited the literary magazine Keshet, which he closed in 1976 after eighteen years of publication to concentrate on his own writing. In 1998, the magazine was revived as The New Keshet.
He was often known in Israel thanks to a popular song by Meir Ariel
, which cited Amir's translation of Hemigway's Islands in the Stream
.
Biography
Amir was born in KaunasKaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
. He moved to Palestine with his family in 1933 and grew up in Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. His father,
Meir Lipec, was later director of the publishing house Am Oved. He attended Gymnasia Herzliya
Herzliya Hebrew High School
The Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium , originally known as HaGymnasia HaIvrit is a historic high school in Tel Aviv, Israel.-History:...
high school. At the time of the British Mandate in Palestine, while studying Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University, Amir was a member of the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
and Lehi
Lehi (group)
Lehi , commonly referred to in English as the Stern Group or Stern Gang, was a militant Zionist group founded by Avraham Stern in the British Mandate of Palestine...
undergrounds as well as a founding member of the Canaanite movement (canaanism
Canaanism
Canaanism was a cultural and ideological movement founded in 1939 that reached its peak in the 1940s among the Jews of Palestine. It has significantly impacted the course of Israeli art, literature, and spiritual and political thought. Its adherents were called Canaanites...
), which saw Hebrew or Israeli culture as defined by geographical location rather than religious affiliation. Amir was married to Bettine, a poet and painter. He had three children from a previous marriage.
He died of cancer on February 28, 2008, at the age of 85, and left his body to science.
Literary career
Amir translated over 300 books into Hebrew, including EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
classics by Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
, Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
, Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...
and Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
, Emily Bronte
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
and O. Henry
O. Henry
O. Henry was the pen name of the American writer William Sydney Porter . O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings.-Early life:...
. He also translated works by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
and Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. He founded and edited the literary magazine Keshet, which he closed in 1976 after eighteen years of publication to concentrate on his own writing. In 1998, the magazine was revived as The New Keshet.
He was often known in Israel thanks to a popular song by Meir Ariel
Meir Ariel
Meir Ariel was an Israeli singer-songwriter.He was known as a "man of words" for his poetic use of the Hebrew language in his lyrics. His influences included Hebrew poets such as Natan Alterman, S. Y...
, which cited Amir's translation of Hemigway's Islands in the Stream
Islands in the Stream (Hemingway)
Islands in the Stream is the first of the posthumously published works of Ernest Hemingway. The book was originally intended to revive Hemingway’s reputation after the negative reviews of Across the River and Into the Trees. He began writing it in 1950 and advanced greatly through 1951...
.
Awards
- In 1951, Amir was awarded the Tchernichovsky PrizeTchernichovsky PrizeThe Tchernichovsky Prize is an Israeli prize awarded to individuals for exemplary works of translation into Hebrew. It is awarded by the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Although initailly awarded annually, it is now awarded every two years....
for exemplary translation. - In 2003, he was awarded the Israel PrizeIsrael PrizeThe Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
, for translation.
Books Published in Hebrew
- Qadim (poetry), Machbarot Lesifrut, 1949 [Qadim]
- Love (stories), Machbarot Lesifrut, 1951 [Ahava]
- And Death Shall Have No Dominion (novel), Zohar, 1955 [Ve-Lo Tehi La-Mavet Memshala]
- Seraph (poetry), Machbarot Lesifrut, 1956 [Saraph]
- Nun (trilogy), Massada, 1969-1989 [Nun]
- Yated (poetry), Levin-Epstein, 1970 [Yated]
- Prose (stories), Hadar, 1972 [Proza]
- A Perfect World (novel), Massada, 1975 [Olam She-Kullo Tov]
- A Separate Peace (poetry), Massada, 1979 [Shalom Nifrad]
- Aphrodite or the Organized Tour (novella), Ma'ariv, 1984 [Afroditi o Ha-Tiyul Ha-Meurgan]
- Heres (poetry), Zmora BitanKinneret Zmora-Bitan Dvir-History:The company's oldest imprint, Dvir, was founded in Odessa in 1919 by Hayyim Nahman Bialik. After the Russian Revolution, Dvir moved to Berlin and in 1924, to Palestine. Machbarot Lesifrut, the company's imprint for world literature in translation, was established by Israel Zmora in 1939....
, 1984 [Heres] - The Clouds Return After the Rain (poetry), Bialik Institute/Machbarot Lesifrut, 1991 [Ve-Shavu He-Avim Ahar Ha-Geshem]
- Aaron's Rod (poetry), Zmora Bitan, 1996 [Mate Aharon]
- The Villains (novel), 1998 [Ha-Nevalim]
Books in Translation
- And Death Shall Have No Dominion(Le soldats du matin); French: Paris, Le Seuil, 1961