Deutsche Welle (English edition)
5 Israeli authors you should know
The 15th German-Israeli Literature Festival in Berlin features renowned authors alongside newcomers of Israeli literature. Here's a selection.
Quickly after the establishment of the State of Israel, a number of star authors emerged on the international literary scene. Shmuel Yosef Agnon was compared to Franz Kafka; Nelly Sachs became the first woman to win the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade in 1965 — and the two authors shared the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year.
Hebrew was not used as an everyday and literary language until the middle of the 19th century. Before that, it was used mainly for religious purposes. Jewish authors wrote in the languages of the countries in which they lived, including Hungarian and German.
Following that first Nobel Prize, Israeli literature, be it Hebrew or Arabic, kept obtaining international acclaim.
Sachs and Agnon were followed by greats of world literature like Ephraim Kishon, one of the most successful satirists in literary history, and Amos Oz, who, honored with countless awards, passed away in 2018.
New female writers also followed in their footsteps, writing about love and war, women and men, the past and the future. Their books are printed by the millions worldwide.
From celebrated newcomers to contemporary classics, DW has this selection of five noteworthy authors.
1. Etgar Keret: The superstar
The internationally renowned, award- winning bestselling author pens novels, screenplays, non-fiction, graphic novels, and has written for different international newspapers. Etgar Keret can rightfully claim to be Israel's contemporary literary star.
His books are published in 45 languages, while the New York Times called him a "genius" and his Indian colleague Salman Rushdie described him as "brilliant."
Keret was also present at the premiere of the German-Israeli Literature Days in 2005. In 2016 he returned with a broken rib to present his memoir with the biblical title, The Seven Good Years.
The humorous understatement is Keret's trademark. The author has won countless literary awards, but also a Camera d'Or at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival together with his wife, filmmaker Shira Geffen. In 2020, the miniseries they created, My Talking Gold sh,
aired on Arte.
Keret's 2021 bow at the German-Israeli Literature Festival in Berlin will see him present his latest collection of short stories, published by S. Fischer-Verlag under the title Tu's nicht (Don't do it), and translated by Barbara Linner.
"I often say that reading basically exercises the weakest of all human muscles: the muscle of empathy," he told DW during his 2016 appearance at the GermanIsraeli Literature Fest.
The author lives in Tel Aviv and teaches at Ben Gurion University.
2. Maayan Eitan: Daring newcomer
A star rising on the Israeli literary horizon, Maayan Eitan's debut novel Love made her a bestselling author in Israel practically overnight.
She tells the story of a young prostitute working in a nameless Israeli city. We don't learn the protagonist's real name, she is introduced as "Libby."
The English translation of the novel is set to be published in 2022 by Penguin Random House.
After studying comparative literature in the US and Israel, the Tel Aviv-based Eitan is currently pursuing a doctoral degree on sleep in literature at Ben Gurion University. She is busy writing her second novel, and serves as an editorial board member of the Tel Aviv Review of Books.
3. David Grossman: Contemporary classic
Calling David Grossman a classic of Israeli literature would not be exaggerated. He writes novels for children, teenagers and adults, characterized by an exquisite sense of humor and his very human way of looking at things.
The 2014 novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar about Dovele Grinstein, a cynical comedian who deals with childhood traumas and his family's Holocaust memories during a public appearance, won him the International Booker Prize in 2017 — making him the first Israeli author to win the prestigious literary award.
David Grossman was born in Jerusalem in 1954 after his father emigrated from Poland to British Mandate Palestine in 1936.
After studying philosophy and theater at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Grossman worked as a journalist for Israeli public radio, becoming known worldwide when he reported on the relationship between Israelis and Arabs in his 1988 collection of reports The Yellow Wind. When he refused to censor his coverage of the Palestinians' declaration of independence that same year, he was fired.
Today, Grossman lives in Jerusalem. In 2006, he lost his second son in the war; Uri Grossman was killed in southern Lebanon.
Grossman advocates against war and sees himself as a committed artist. More than I love My Life is his most recent novel.
His works have been translated into more than 30 languages.
In 2010, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. The jury honored him in particular for his commitment to reconciliation between Israel and Palestine. During the award ceremony he said that he believed in peace, even when the situation seemed hopeless, because "history shows that even the worst enemies make peace in the end."
4. Zeruya Shalev: Master storyteller
She takes an unblinking look at life and love. Successfully so: Zeruya Shalev's award-winning trilogy about modern love —
Love Life, Husband and Wife and
Thera — has been translated into more than 20 languages.
In 2015, she published Pain, a novel about her experiences as a survivor of a bombing in Israel.
Literary critics had already been calling her a "master of pain." "My books have something dark about them," Shalev told DW at the time Pain was published, adding that she is particularly interested in the abysses of the soul that are about crises and painful processes. Evil, in her opinion, is not pain, but "the desire to kill and the desire to die."
Zeruya Shalev was born in 1959 in a kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. Today, she and her family live in the Israeli city of Haifa. She studied biblical studies and is considered one of the most important contemporary storytellers.
A wa rd - wi n n i n g F ren c hMoroccan author Leila Slimani described Shalev in the New York Times as an extraordinary writer whom she greatly admires.
5. Lizzie Doron: Grande Dame
The Holocaust and the trauma of the persecution of Jews passed on to the following generations are Lizzie Doron's main literary focus.
Born in 1953 as the only daughter of a Holocaust survivorin Tel Aviv, she studied linguistics and worked as a linguist at the university. Her mother did not tell her about her traumatic experiences in the concentration camps, but urged her daughter to live for the future. Doron had little contact with her Warsawborn father, who stayed in a sanatorium throughout her life, and died when she was eight years old.
When Lizzie Doron's daughter wanted to learn more about her family history for a school essay, Doron started writing.
Her first book, Why Didn't You Come Before the War? has long been on reading lists in Israeli schools. Most recently, she published two works about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Who the fuck is Kafka (2015) and Sweet Occupation (2017).
That's why some people in Israel consider the internationally celebrated author a "traitor." Her latest book, which will be published in Germany this year under the title What If, has not yet found an Israeli publisher, the author told DW in the spring.
She will present her new novel at the 15th German-Israeli Literature Festival, held from September 1-4 at the Literaturhaus Berlin.
Literature, Doron told DW, has the power to sow seeds for change "for what is to come."
graphy," says Baylen Leonard, a country music broadcaster based in London. "It's about storytelling and emotion."
'The perfect storm'
Olykan says the focus of her work is "to shift perceptions about country music. For example, it's not only older people who listen to country. It's young people. And the audiences have got younger over the years."
But what has led to the explosive revival of country well beyond the US?
"It was almost like a perfect storm. It started back in the day when we had Taylor Swift, who never presented herself — especially in Europe — as a country artist, but she clearly was a country artist. So she started to crossover. And Kacey Musgraves also attracted people to country soon thereafter," Olykan explains.
"Then the TV show ' Nashville' came out with all its stories and drama and intrigue, and that actually really opened people's minds to young people making country music — as opposed to it being only older artists like Kenny Rogers. That kind of opened the door."
The rise of streaming services in the early 2010s also made the genre more accessible, according to Baylen Leonard: "You don't have to go to the country section of a record store anymore. You'll be listening to something on a streaming platform and then an algorithm will suggest something else you might like."
The country music industry then cashed in on this development in Europe: "In 2012, the Country to Country music festival was launched at The O2 arena in London. By the second year, it went so well they added Glasgow and Dublin. By now, it’s also gained a foothold in Berlin and Amsterdam," Olykan further highlights.
According to Olykan, outside the US, the UK has now become the biggest target market of the genre — with the rest of Europe, especially Germany and Scandinavia, also registering major growth. And in the US, country now is even the second fastest growing genre of music, according to TIME magazine.
No pandemic blues
The numbers behind the stellar rise of country in the UK and then in the rest of Europe are impressive: according to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which is the official charts company in the UK, the genre witnessed a growth factor of 19% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the same time in 2020. And the year before, country even grew by 47%.
"TikTok has also been a great tool for discovery of new country artists, especially during the pandemic, like Priscilla Block and Callista Clark," says Milly Olykan. "Some artists got major record deals because of TikTok," adds Baylen Leonard.
With all these modern developments, the country genre clearly is no longer all about your "achy breaky heart" — to quote a trope from the 1990s — but rather tackles relatable issues, not just in terms of lyrics but also in terms of sound: Milly Olykan welcomes the fact that there are more and more country performers who "enter the pop space and more pop artists (who) enter the country space. And I think that will be mutually beneficial. I would love to see more of such cross-genre work. Especially internationally."
Baylen Leonard, who also runs the Long Road Festival of country music, adds that those kind of collaborations are becoming increasingly interesting for the genre, highlighting that "artists are now also bringing in HipHop and RnB into country. And that, too, is country."
Radical honesty
But even older country legends are celebrating a revival in their own right. While back in the day, country music was treated much like Thanksgiving dinner — i.e. you don't speak about religion or politics — the new country age appears to have embraced diversity as a key message at its heart.
"One of the most common misconceptions about country music is that it is all about a truck and a dog, and holding on to your gun. Another one is that country music is white, and that it is conservative and closeminded," says Baylen Leonard.
"Look, I'm not saying that country music doesn't have a diversity issue," Leonard adds, "but there are more and more Black artists, there are more and more artists with all kinds of sexualities. So there are movements within country music that are challenging all those conceptions. Plus, the roots of country music are Black anyway. The banjo is an African instrument."
There's perhaps none other than Dolly Parton to prove that country is moving with the times. Half a century ago already, she boldly sang about the fate of jilted women and teenage pregnancy, trying to inject a stuffy musical genre with some of the subversive energy of the Women's Lib movement. Today, the mother of country music no longer needs to hide her messages under her impressive wigs (although she still continues to don them with great style).
"Dolly Parton is not only a global icon. She's also a local hero in Tennessee. She is absolutely authentic to who she is. She is exactly who you think she's going to be. She's not an act. She loves all God's children," Baylen Leonard told DW shortly after interviewing Parton on air.
Indeed, from homosexuality to interracial marriage, Parton has taken some of her old songs to address some of the hot topics in society, while giving these tunes a 21st century facelift: The eight-part Netflix series Dolly Parton's Heartstrings pushes major buttons with a great amount of sensitivity and respect, inviting its viewers to walk a mile in someone else's boots to Dolly's tune.
The fictional storylines reflect much about the foundations of country music being rooted in community, friendship and a shared understanding of the human experience.
"We are just so, so lucky to have her," says Milly Olykan about Dolly Parton.
Meanwhile the podcast on the singer, Dolly Parton's America, does the same as the TV series while eschewing fiction for fact. One of the most successful podcasts of all time, the show follows her career, with each chapter reflecting the social change that Parton has witnessed throughout her life.
In the series, Parton never shies away from speaking her truth — even when it comes
to uncomfortable topics, such as contemplating suicide early in her career. It almost feels like one woman's life-long journey of liberation from the shackles of patriarchy.
The ride continues
With all these trends and rise in popularity, the country market is expanding and has its eyes set on a future beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, with big names planning to tour across Europe and beyond, and festivals like the British Country Music Festival and many others like it outside the US looking forward to a return to live performance. And one of the biggest market with growth potential identified by the CMA is Germany.
"Germany is such a big global music market. We have to improve our foothold with country music there because there are definitely fans of the genre but there's still a lot of potential there," says Milly Olykan, who herself hails from New Zealand.
And Tennessee-native Baylen Leonard appears confident that in any market, country music is fully able to fill whatever big boots it is given: "Like any quality art form, country is not a museum piece. It's a living, breathing, evolving art form. And that's as true today as it was with Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Patsy Kline back in the day," he explained.
"This moment in country music is actually not a reemergence. It's just a continuation."