Meir Shalev

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“Meir Shalev is a master story teller whose magic realism is similar to the art of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.”—Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Meir Shalev, Israel’s most celebrated novelist, was born in 1948 in Nahalal, Israel’s first moshav. He is a bestselling author in Israel, Holland, and Germany, and he has been translated into over 20 languages. In 2005, he was voted the 42nd-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

Now Shalev is making his impact felt on the American literary scene. His books include Fontanelle, Alone In the Desert, But A Few Days, and Esau. Russian Romance (The Blue Mountain) is one of the of the top 5 bestsellers in Israeli publishing history. Shalev’s writing is often compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez for his ability to “create worlds inhabited by the richness of invention and obsessiveness of dreams... He delivers both startling imagery and passionate, original characters whose destinies we follow through love, loss, laughter and death.” (The New York Times Book Review)

He studied Psychology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and produced and hosted several radio and television programs. He has written twelve children’s books, as well as four collections of essays. Meir Shalev is also a columnist with the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. He lives in Jerusalem and in the north of Israel with his wife and children, where he is a motorcycle and jeep enthusiast.

Meir Shalev - Wikipedia - Books

Biography

He began his career by presenting ironic features on television and radio. He also moderated the program Erev Shabbat ("Friday night") on Israel channel one. In 1988 his first novel was published, The Blue Mountain (Hebrew title Roman Russi [Russian novel]).

He has written non-fiction and children's books as well, and he writes a weekly column in the weekend edition of the newspaper Yediot Ahronot. In his column, Shalev comments satirically on government policy and laments the situation of the Israeli people.

Bestselling Israeli author, Zeruya Shalev is Meir Shalev's cousin.

Awards

• ▪ Juliet Club Prize (Italy)
• ▪ Chiavari (Italy)
• ▪ Entomological Prize (Israel)
• ▪ WIZO Prize (France, Israel, Italy)
• ▪ Bernstein Prize (original Hebrew novel category) (1989)[1]
• ▪ Brenner Prize (Israel) for 'A Pigeon and a Boy'

Selected books

Fiction

• ▪ 1988 The Blue Mountain ISBN 0060166916 (1988, originally published in Hebrew as Roman Rusi) Reprinted, 2010
• ▪ 1991 Esau ISBN 006019040X
• ▪ 1994 As a Few Days, also called The Four Meals ISBN 1841951145 and The Loves of Judith ISBN 0880016353
• ▪ 1998 His House in the Desert (or "Alone in the Desert")
• ▪ 2002 Fontanelle ISBN 3257235542
• ▪ 2006 A Pigeon and A Boy (originally published in Hebrew as Yona v'naar by Am Oved Publishers, Tel Aviv), translated by Evan Fallenberg, Random House, New York, ISBN 978-0-8052-4251-5
• ▪ 2011 About My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner ISBN 0805242872 (Memoir)
• ▪ 2011 Beginnings: Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing Firsts ISBN 0307717186 (Nonfiction)

Non-fiction

• ▪ 1985 Bible Now, a book containing interpretations of Hebrew Bible stories from his personal point of view, which first appeared in the newspaper Haaretz.
• ▪ Elements of Conjuration
• ▪ 1995 Mainly About Love
• ▪ 1998 My Jerusalem
• ▪ 2008 In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible

Children's books

• ▪ 1982 Michael and the Monster of Jerusalem ISBN 965382001X
• ▪ 1987 Zohar's Dimples
• ▪ 1988 My Father Always Embarrasses Me
• ▪ 1990 Nehama the Louse
• ▪ 1993 How the Neanderthal Inadvertently Invented Kebab
• ▪ 1994 A flood, a snake and two arks
• ▪ 1995 The Tractor in the Sandbox
• ▪ 2000 Aunt Michal
• ▪ 2004 A lion at night
• ▪ 2004 Roni and Nomi and the Bear Yaacov
• ▪ A Louise Named Thelma
• ▪ A Lion in the Night
• ▪ 2007 Uncle Aaron and his rain