Yesterday, Yonatan Berg’s first poetry collection appeared in Joanna Chen’s English translation, Frayed Light, published by the Wesleyan Poetry Series.
The poems in this collection gather all of these experiences—religion, settlements and the Palestinian neighbors they displace or live next to, military service—into heartfelt narrative poems.
Berg was born in 1981 in Jerusalem to a religious family and grew up in Psagot, a settlement in the West Bank. After serving in the military, Berg gave up the religious lifestyle. He now lives with his wife, the poet and essayist Geula Gertz in Jerusalem, with their young daughter.
Text:
Frayed Light by Yonatan Berg, translated by Joanna Chen. Wesleyan Poetry Series, Sept. 2019.
