Customer Reviews

Dreaming the Actual: Contemporary Fiction and Poetry by Israeli Women Writers (SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture)

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A South American Catholic, I ordered this book containing the works of Israeli Jewish women in order to look at this beautiful, contradictory and war-ridden country from a different angle. Well, I was not disappointed. "Dreaming the Actual" is like a colorful patchwork, filled with voices, images and realities that draw you into a rich and changing picture. Though the presence of the Holocaust is, understandably, strong, there are no hackneyed stories here. The tragedy is evoked mostly through the experience of survivors' children, and is thus removed from the European stage to the one their lives are unfolding in. Also, I was pleased by the deep awareness of the Palestinian plight I found in some of the works. There are some really gifted women here. Both the stories' and the poems' quality is very high. I know I will return to this book again and again.

Although I was familiar with Israeli writers like Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, I had never read the stories (or poetry) by women writers. And I wasn't really aware of what a multicultural, multilingual, culture Israel is. Reading this book has been an extraordinary experience. It has made the culture live for me, in all its vivid complexity. Miriyam Glazer has done a brilliant job in her introduction to the book and to all the individual stories -- making the stories accessible and the tenor of the culture nearly palpable. I love this book and recommend it highly to anyone who wants to understand what it means to grow up in Israel and face issues of poverty, war, immigration, coming-of-age, spirituality. Fabulous collection!

Dreaming the Actual is a superb collection of short stories and poetry -- I appreciated the fact that most of the material is new, and the result is that the book captures the sensibility of the scene in Israel today. I also valued the editor's decision to include work originally written in Arabic, Russian, and English, as well, of course, as Hebrew -- The stories are riveting; because of the way Glazer has organized the book,you truly get a sense of what it was like to live in Israel even before the founding of the State, all the way up to the present. The introduction is masterfully and beautifully written, and the introductions to each story and each author wonderful guides. I recommend this book highly.