The Early Books of Yehuda Amichai [Paperback]

Yehuda Amichai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1988

The Early Books of Yehuda Amichai collects for the first time in a single volume the three works -- Songs of Jerusalem and Myself, Poems and Time -- that established Amichai as Israel's greatest contemporary poet and one of the major poets of our time.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This English translation of the popular Israeli poet's early work serves as a fine introduction to his oeuvre. Amichai's first volumes, published in the 1950s, influenced a generation of poetsparticularly in the contrasts that he created between the modern Hebrew of daily speech and the classical Hebrew of the holy texts: "To speak, now, in this tired language / torn from its sleep in the Bible / blinded, it lurches from mouth to mouth / the language which described God and the Miracles, / says: / motor car, bomb, God." Amichai keenly evinces the poet's function as observer and social critic: "Out of three or four in a room / one is always standing at the window. / Forced to see the injustice among the thorns, / the fires on the hill." The life of the poet's father and the bitter experiences of war are coupled in a chronicling of the ironies of the Israeli experience. "My Father Fought Their War for Four Years" addresses the fact that although Israel was envisioned as a haven for the Jews, its people are often embattled. And in the long cycle of love verses, "Achziv Poems," Amichai characteristically weds the sacred and the sexual.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

He is one of our great poets ... Once one has heard his quiet, even tones, precise, distanced and passionate, one can never forget them.--The Times Literary Supplement

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Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: Sheep Meadow; 1st edition (December 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0935296751
• ISBN-13: 978-0935296754
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,739,839 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #85 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Middle Eastern > Hebrew

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