On today’s episode, host Marcela Sulak reads from the opening of Yael Neeman’s 2011 lyrical memoir about life on kibbutz Yehiam in the Galil. It’s called “We Were The Future: A Memoir of the Kibbutz,” and it came out in October of this year in Sondra Silverston’s English translation:
“And they were really the best years of our lives, dipped in gold, precisely because we lived in below-zero temperatures in the blazing heat of an eternal sun. We greeted each new day with eagerness and curiosity. We were wide awake in the morning and wide awake at night. We skipped and ran from place to place, our hands stiky with pine tree resin and fig milk. We were so close to each other, all day and all night. Yet we knew nothing about ourselves.”
Yael Neeman was born in Kibbutz Yehiam. She is the internationally bestselling author of two novels, “Orange Tuesday” and “Rumors about Love,” as well as a collection of stories, The Option. Neeman was awarded the Prime Minister’ Prize for Hebrew Writers in 2015.
Texts:
Yael Neeman, “We Were the Future: A Memoir of the Kibbutz.” Translated by Sondra Silverston. Poems and Songs translated by Jessica Cohen. The Overlook Press; 1 edition (October 25, 2016)
Music:
Shuv Yotze Ha’Zemer – Hagevatron
Yam Ha’Shibolim – Hagevatron
Emek Sheli – Hagevatron
Producer: Ariella Plachta
Technical producer: Tammy Goldenberg
