Of the scant female biblical characters, few are as intriguing as Avishag the Shunammite: a young girl brought from obscurity to the court of the aged King David, to warm the king's bed and stir his aged blood. Though 'exceedingly fair', she does not become the King's concubine. Reticent and loyal to David, she becomes an unwitting magnet, drawing the attention of the kingdom's most powerful men. As the sons of David - Adonijah the Judean and Solomon the Wise stake their claims, it is Avishag who will play the decisive role in the bloody rivalry for the succession
Yael Lotan was born in in British Mandatory Palestine in 1935, the daughter of prominent Revisionist Zionist activists from Riga, Latvia. On her father's diplomatic posting to Argentina in 1953, she spent a year in Buenos Aires, before moving to London to study English Literature. She spent the next sixteen years in London, Jamaica and New York before returning to Israel in 1970 with her son and daughter from her first and second marriage, respectively.
During the 1970s and 1980s Lotan was editor-in-chief of 'Ariel', a quarterly on arts and letters, then of 'New Outlook', a political monthly, and for some time the magazine 'Modern Hebrew Literature', issued by the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature, and was literary editor of the daily 'Al Hamishmar'. Over the years she published numerous articles, book reviews and criticisms in Israel and abroad.
Among the works she has translated from Hebrew into English are: 'Language Closing and Disclosing' by H. N. Bialik and portions of 'Hasefer Hameshuga' ('The Crazy Book') by Haim Gouri; among the works of fiction she translated are 'The Great Madness' by Avigdor Hameiri, 'Dolna Street' by Arieh Eckstein, 'Trumpet in the Wadi' by Sami Michael, short stories by Yitzhak Shami, 'Clouds' by Dan Tzalka, 'Samir and Yonatan' by Daniella Carmi, 'Persian Brides' and 'Our Weddings' by Dorit Rabinyan', 'Breznitz' by Haim Lapid, 'Lunar Eclipse' by Alona Kimche, "Yasmin" by Eli Amir; among the non-fiction or academic books are: 'Childhood in the Middle Age' and 'Old Age in the Middle Ages' by Shulamith Shahar, 'History and Ideology in the Bible' by Yairah Amit, 'Mourning a Father Lost' by Avraham Balaban, 'Yaacov Herzog' by Michael Bar-Zohar, "Celestial India" by Isaac Lubelsky.
Lotan died in 2009 after a brief struggle with cancer.
