David Grossman (; born January 25, 1954) is an Israeli author. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages.
In 2018, he was awarded the Israel Prize for literature.
Biography
David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the elder of two brothers. His mother, Michaella, was born in Mandatory Palestine; his father, Yitzhak,
aliyah from Dynów in
Poland with his widowed mother at the age of nine. His mother's family was
Labor Zionist and poor. His grandfather paved roads in the
Galilee and supplemented his income by buying and selling rugs. His maternal grandmother, a manicurist, left Poland after police harassment. Accompanied by her son and daughter, she immigrated to
Palestine and worked as a maid in wealthy neighborhoods.
Grossman's father was a bus driver, then a librarian. Among the literature he brought home for his son to read were the stories of Sholem Aleichem.
In 1971, Grossman served in the IDF military intelligence corps. He was in the army when the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973, but saw no action.
Grossman studied philosophy and theater at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Grossman lives in Mevasseret Zion on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He is married to Michal Grossman, a child psychologist. They had three children, Yonatan, Ruthi, and Uri. Uri was a tank-commander in the Israel Defense Forces, and was killed in action on the last day of the 2006 Lebanon War.
Radio career
After university, Grossman became an anchor on
Kol Yisrael, Israel's national broadcasting service. In 1988 he was sacked for refusing to bury the news that the Palestinian leadership had declared its own state and conceded Israel's right to exist.
Literary career
He addressed the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in his 2008 novel,
To the End of the Land. Since that book's publication he has written a children's book, an
libretto for children and several poems.
His 2014 book,
Falling Out of Time, deals with the grief of parents in the aftermath of their children's death.
In 2017, he was awarded the Man Booker International Prize in conjunction with his frequent collaborator and translator,
Jessica Cohen, for his novel
A Horse Walks Into a Bar.
Political activism
Grossman is an outspoken
left-wing peace activist.
He has been described by
The Economist as epitomising Israel's left-leaning cultural elite.
Initially supportive of Israel's action during the 2006 Lebanon War on the grounds of self-defense, on August 10, 2006, he and fellow authors Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua held a press conference at which they strongly urged the government to agree to a ceasefire that would create the basis for a negotiated solution, saying: "We had a right to go to war. But things got complicated. ... I believe that there is more than one course of action available."
Two days later, Grossman's 20-year-old son Uri, a Staff Sergeant in the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed in southern Lebanon when his tank was hit by an anti-tank missile shortly before the ceasefire came into effect.[http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1154525864908] Grossman explained that the death of his son did not change his opposition to Israel's policy towards the Palestinians.
Two months after his son's death, Grossman addressed a crowd of 100,000 Israelis who had gathered to mark the anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. He denounced Ehud Olmert's government for a failure of leadership and he argued that reaching out to the Palestinians was the best hope for progress in the region:
"Of course I am grieving, but my pain is greater than my anger. I am in pain for this country and for what you Olmert and your friends are doing to it."
About his personal link to the war, Grossman said: "There were people who stereotyped me, who considered me this naive leftist who would never send his own children into the army, who didn't know what life was made of. I think those people were forced to realise that you can be very critical of Israel and yet still be an integral part of it; I speak as a reservist in the Israeli army myself.
In 2010 Grossman, his wife, and her family attended demonstrations against the spread of Israeli settlements. While attending weekly demonstrations in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem against Jewish settlers taking over houses in Palestinian neighbourhoods, he was assaulted by police. When asked by a reporter for The Guardian about how a renowned writer could be beaten, he replied: "I don't know if they know me at all."
Awards and recognition
In 2015, Grossman withdrew his candidacy for the
Israel Prize for Literature after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tried to remove two of the judging panel who he claimed were "
anti-Zionist".
He was awarded the prize in 2018.
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1984: Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works
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1985: Bernstein Prize (original Hebrew novel category)
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1991: Nelly Sachs Prize
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1993: Bernstein Prize (original Hebrew novel category)
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2001: Sapir Prize for Someone to Run With
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2004: JQ Wingate Prize (fiction) for Someone to Run With
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2004: Italian prize Premio Ennio Flaiano;
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2004: Bialik Prize for literature (with Haya Shenhav and Ephraim Sidon)
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2007: Emet Prize
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2007: Ischia International Journalism Award
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2007: honorary Honorary Degree by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
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2008: Geschwister-Scholl-Preis
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2010: Albatros Literaturpreis for To the End of the Land, with German translator Anne Birch Hauer
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2010: Peace Prize of the German Book Trade
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2010: National Jewish Book Award for To the End of the Land
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2011: JQ Wingate Prize for To the End of the Land
[ Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize 2011 ]
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2015: St. Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates
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2017: Man Booker International Prize for A Horse Walks into a Bar (with translator Jessica Cohen)
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2018: Israel Prize
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2021: Elected a Royal Society of Literature International Writer
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2022: Winner of the Erasmus Prize.
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2024: Marion Dönhoff Prize for International Understanding and Reconciliation
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2024: Heinrich Heine prize for promoting human rights
Works translated into English
Fiction
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Duel דו. London: Bloomsbury, 1998,
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The Smile of the Lamb חיוך. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990,
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See Under: Love עיין. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989,
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The Book of Intimate Grammar ספר. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1994,
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The Zigzag Kid יש. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997, – won two prizes in Italy: the Premio Mondello in 1996, and the Premio Grinzane Cavour in 1997.
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Be My Knife שתהיי. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001,
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Someone to Run With מישהו. London: Bloomsbury, 2003,
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Her Body Knows: two novellas בגוף. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005,
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To the End of the Land אישה. Jessica Cohen, trans. Knopf, 2010,
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Falling Out of Time. Jessica Cohen, trans. Knopf, 2014,
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A Horse Walks Into a Bar: A Novel. סוס. Jessica Cohen, trans. Knopf, 2017,
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More Than I Love My Life, 2019, אתי החיים משחק הרבה
Nonfiction
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The Yellow Wind הזמן. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1988,
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Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel נוכחים. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993,
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Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years after Oslo מוות. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003,
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Lion’s honey : the myth of Samson דבש. Edinburgh; New York: Canongate, 2006,
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Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008,
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The Thinking Heart: Essays on Israel and Palestine Jonathan Cape (Penguin Random House), 2024,
Films
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The Smile of the Lamb, award-winning film written and directed by Shimon Dotan, based on the Grossman novel by the same name.
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Someone to Run With, directed by Oded Davidoff, based on the Grossman novel by the same name.
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The Book of Intimate Grammar was the basis for an award-winning film by Nir Bergman.
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The Zigzag Kid, directed by Vincent Bal, based on the Grossman novel by the same name.
See also
External links
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David Grossman: "Writing against the Mechanism of Retaliation", Qantara.de, 13-10-2010.
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Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature, David Grossman (bibliography with brief biography). Retrieved January 12, 2005.
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Eli ESHED, "Is Naava Home? Naava's Not Home" נאווה בבית? נאווה לא בבית] (Hebrew). Retrieved January 12, 2005.
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Grossman's speech at the Rabin Memorial November 4, 2006 [5] Retrieved November 20, 2006.
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Johanna Baum, "A Literary Analysis of Tramatic Neurosis in Israeli Society: David Grossman's See Under: Love", Other Voices, vol. 2.1.
