Posted
May 4th, 2011
by
The Dove Flyer by Eli Amir
Translated from Hebrew by Hillel Halkin
A lyrical farewell to the city – and Jewish culture – that Eli Amir grew up in and loved, and which is now gone forever. A marvellous story, noble, dreamy and beautifully told, that brings alive the feel, the taste, the fears and the pleasures of the Jewish community of Baghdad. In 1950, each member of Kabi’s Jewish circle in Baghdad has a different dream. His mother wants to return to the Moslem quarter where she felt safer; his father wants to emigrate to Israel and grow rice; Salim, his headmaster, wants Arabs and Jews to be equal, and Abu Edouard wants to be left alone to care for his adored doves. But his Uncle Hizkel’s arrest is the beginning of a perilous future. The Dove Flyer reconstructs in moving detail the decline and persecution of another Middle Eastern minority, the centuries-old Jewish community of Baghdad.
Published by Halban, 2010
Eli Amir was born in Baghdad in 1937, and his family moved to Israel in 1951 alongside 20,000 other Jewish exiles. He served as special advisor to the Prime Minister, responsible for Arab affairs in east Jerusalem, and worked as a political columnist, lecturer, and member of the Israeli delegation on Palestinian refugee affairs. Currently Amir is chairman of the public council of The Abraham Fund for Coexistence and Equality between Israeli Arabs and Jews.
His work has received many awards, including: the Yigal Alon prize for Outstanding Service to the Israeli Society (1997); Youth Immigration’s Jubilee Prize (1983); the Jewish Literature Prize (Mexico, 1985); the Ahi Award (1994); Am Oved’s Jubilee Prize (1994); the Book Publishers Association’s Platinum Prize (1998); and the Prime Minister’s Prize (2002). He received an Honorary Doctorate from the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Ben Gurion University and the Tel Aviv University.
Hillel Halkin has lived in Israel since 1970, working as a translator, journalist, and author. A leading Hebrew-English and Yiddish-English translator, he has translated more than fifty works of fiction, poetry, and drama, including classic works by Agnon, Sholem Aleichem, Y. L. Peretz, and contemporary Israeli writers such as Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. As a journalist, Halkin was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize when he wrote for the New York weekly Forward, and he has written widely on Israeli and Jewish politics, literature and culture.
Originally posted with the url: www.englishpen.org/writersintranslation/recentlysupportedtitles/thedoveflyer/
