Tal Nitzán (in Hebrew: טל ניצן) is an Israeli poet, writer, translator and editor.
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Poetry in Holocaust Education Part 3/4: "Written in Pencil in the Sealed Railway-Car" by Dan Pagis
Transcription
Dan Pagis was born into a Jewish family in Bukovina, Rumania in 1930, and died in Jerusalem in 1986. He was first confronted with the Holocaust as a boy of eleven, on a German transport train, with his grandparents. Pagis survived the Holocaust and arrived in Palestine as a sixteen-year-old. He married, had children and besides being a popular teacher of Literature at the Hebrew University, he also became one of Israel's leading poets. Here in this carload I am eve, with Abel my son. If you see my other son Cain son of man tell him that I For me it's one of the ultimate poems on the Holocaust. This poem has to be taught together with the four verses in the book of genesis, because he invokes the name Cain and Abel and Eve and Adam in the poem itself. So what Pagis is doing is making a direct connection between that first universal family, the first murderer on earth - there are only four people on earth and one brother murders the other, Cain murders Abel - and it's an uninterrupted history of murder for Dan Pagis, because history for Dan Pagis is cyclical, and if you look carefully at the poem, the poem is not concluded. So you can read the poem from the end of the poem, it's cyclical, from the end of the poem to the beginning of the poem ad infinitum, and I think that one of the themes to be extracted from this particular fact is that for Dan Pagis history is cyclical in terms of murder, from that single murder to mass murder. Other things that emanate from the dialog between the verses and the poem: Woman in the two tragedies: the tragedy of the murder of her one son, her youngest son, and the place of woman in the tragedy of the Holocaust. You could touch on the theme of Holocaust denial because Cain, in the story in the Bible, in one of the verses, denies - he doesn't know where his brother is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" So you have here a denial that is a prototype of Holocaust denial three thousand years down the line. The subject of the mark of Cain, that is something that could be discussed as a theme. The need to leave testimony: If you look at the poem, the last line of the poem is "tell him that i", and Dan Pagis doesn't put any words into Eve's mouth. He's unable to actually formulate the testimony that she wants to leave. So one of the things that we suggest you can do with the students in your class, is to have them write out this testimony that Dan Pagis didn't formulate. And then you have of course wonderful material for class discussion afterwards.
Early life and education
Nitzán was born in Jaffa in November 9, 1961 and has lived in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, and New York City. She now resides in Tel Aviv. She holds a BA in art history and Latin American studies and an MA in literature from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[1]
Literary work
Nitzán has published seven poetry books, two novels and six children's books, and has edited three poetry anthologies: two are selections of Latin-American poetry and one, 'With an Iron Pen', is a collection of Hebrew protest poetry. Her poems have been translated to more than 20 languages, and various selections of her work have been published in English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Lithuanian and Macedonian.[citation needed]
Nitzán has translated to Hebrew works in prose, poetry, and drama, from Spanish and English.[citation needed] She was also editor in chief of "Latino", a series of Latin American literature in translation, of "Mekomi" ("Local" in Hebrew), a series for original Hebrew prose, both for major Israeli publishers, and of the independent literary magazine "Orot" ("lights" in Hebrew). She is a founding editor of the Israeli National Library's online literary magazine, "Ha-Mussach" ("The Garage").
Nitzán has been awarded many Israeli literary prizes (such as The Prime Minister's Prize for writers, the women's writers' prize, awards for beginning poets and for debut poetry book, the Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation and more) and has participated in various local and international poetry festivals.[2]
Selected bibliography
Poetry books in Hebrew:
- "Doméstica", 2002
- "An Ordinary Evening", 2006
- "Café Soleil Bleu", 2007
- "The First to Forget", 2009
- "Look at the same Cloud twice", 2012
- "To the inner Court" (bi-lingual Hebrew-English, with artist Tsibi Geva), 2015
- "Atlantis", 2019
Poetry Selections in Translation:
- "Penki langai į sodą" (Lithuania, 2009), various translators.
- "Architettura d'interni" (Franco Puzzo Editore, Italia, 2010), translation: Jack Arbib.
- "Soirée ordinaire" (Al Manar, France, 2011), various translators.
- "Dans l'esquif étroit" (with artist Guy Paul Chauder, Al Manar, France, 2011).
- "Vago" (Pen Press, Argentina-USA, 2012), translation: Gerardo Lewin.
- "Animale Notturno" (Il Laboratorio, Italia, 2013), translation: Jack Arbib.
- "El tercer niño" (Pen Press, Argentina-USA, 2013), various translators.
- "With an Iron Pen" (Anthology of Hebrew Protest Poetry, English version by Rachel Tzvia Beck, SUNY Press, USA, 2009).
- "D'un burin de fer" (Anthologie de poésie israélienne engagée, traduction de Isabelle Dotan, Al Manar, France, 2013).
- "O Ponto da Ternura" (Lumme Editore, Brasil, 2013), translation: Moacir Amancio.
- "At the End of Sleep" (Restless books, 2014, e-book), various translators.
- "To the inner Court" (with artist Tsibi Geva, Even Hoshen Books 2015), various translators.
- "Zu Deiner Frage" (Verlagshaus Berlin, 2015, Illustrations: Jul Gordon), translation: Gundula Schiffer.
- "Deux fois le même nuage" (Al Manar, France, 2016), with artist Albert Woda, various translators.
- "La misma nube dos veces" (Buenos aires Poetry, 2019), various translators.
Novels:
- "Each and every Child", Achuzat Bayit books, 2015
- "The last Passenger", Am Oved, 2020
As editor:
- "With an Iron Pen", an anthology of Hebrew anti-occupation poetry (1984–2004), 2005
(English version published by SUNY Press, USA, 2009; French version by Al-Manar, 2013).
Literary Translation
Nitzán is one of Israel's most prominent translators of Hispanic literature. She has translated to Hebrew circa 80 books, mostly from Spanish and from English.[citation needed]
For her translations she was awarded several prizes, among them the Translators Creation Prize (twice) by the Ministry of Culture and the Tchernichovsky Prize for exemplary translation.[citation needed]
In 2004 she received an honorary medal from the President of Chile for her translation of Pablo Neruda's poetry.[citation needed]
References
External links
- Tal Nitzan's Web Page
- A radio feature on WDR, Germany
- About the anthology "With an Iron Pen" in Americans for Peace Now site
- Eli Eliahu, A Poet Must Know How to Kick, an interview with Tal Nitzán on Haaretz online, 18 June 2008
- "Buy Two Get One Free", a short story by Tal Nitzán in The Short Story Project