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“Wonderful exposure to contemporary Hebrew (mostly) fiction and poetry - much of which is not available or known about outside of Israel.”
“Excellent podcast giving exposure to the best of Israeli letters: fiction and poetry, contemporary and classic, it's an essential regular listen. Also has very well selected musical accompaniments.”
“Marcela's voice is perfect for narrating the poetry featured on this podcast. It really puts me in between the lines of text.”
Recent Episodes
The Poetry of Ayat Abou Shmeiss
In her second book, Ayat Abou Shmeiss's subjects include an examination of her life as a mother and as a student at the Open University, where she is finishing a degree in political science. The poet has a clear grasp of her position. “I’m this and that” she said.
“The Life:” The Biography of Flavius Josephus
We continue what we began in last week's episode, discussing the historian Flavius Josephus, focusing on his biography, “The Life.”
About the Host
Marcela Sulak
Marcela is an associate professor in the Department of English Literature and Linguistics at Bar-Ilan University. She teaches American Literature, poetics, and translation, and poetry workshops in the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing. Her poetry includes Decency (2015), Immigrant (2010). She was nominated for the 2017 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, and translates from Czech, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, and Yiddish. She’s co-edited Family Resemblance. An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres, and her essays appear in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Boston Review, The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere.
“My Flesh Speaks of God”
Today we read poetry by Haya Esther, a woman born into an ultra orthodox household in Jerusalem, and who was fired from her job in a girl’s Haredi school after her first book of poems was published in 1983. She went on to write 18 volumes of poetry.