Synopses & Reviews
“Rachel Shihor is the opposite of a misty-eyed writer,” writes Mona Reiserer in the
Quarterly Conversation. “Her writing penetrates to the truth of the aches and anxieties all people share, though they must generally suffer them alone.” “There is no question that she is a great writer,” Nicole Krauss, author of
The History of Love, confirms, “Only a master could make such originality feel inevitable. The only question is why so few people have had the chance to read her.”
In Stalin is Dead, Shihor offers a medley of aphorisms, flash fiction, and short stories, carving out a slice of the world in which Kafka would feel at home. The characters that inhabit this world—reckless she-goats, morose fish, somnambulistic theologians, poignant old ladies, dying dictators, and dead poets, to name just a few—have nothing in common save for the fact that they instruct us on the human condition. Available at last in Ornan Rotem’s translation, these edifying stories, with all their sadness and humor, are a writer’s tour de force and a reader’s delight.
Review
“There is no question that Rachel Shihor is a great writer." Nicole Krauss, author of The History of Love
Review
“Rachel Shihor refuses to shy away from hard truths, but there is still an unmistakable warmth in the way she treats her subjects. Her characters are not innocent (one of them is Stalin after all); on the contrary, they are subtly tainted and damaged by the mere fact of being human, of belonging to a species with a proven capacity for violence and injustice. Yet Shihor’s deep understanding of humanity’s weakness and cruelty does not overwhelm her portrait; instead it adds an additional dimension of authority to the candid, unsentimental fairness of her approach. . . . One gets the sense of a writer who observes life with clear, wakeful eyes, and who never averts them, no matter how distressing the things they see.”
Asymptote
Review
“Stalin Is Dead is a marvelous showcase for Shihor, who packs more prescience and incisiveness into her tiny pages than most writers would be lucky to conjure up in a doorstop-sized novel. . . . And its not only this style itself but the privileged position which Shihor affords it that, in a sea of deft character studies and neat turns of phrase, makes our immersion in her writing feel so worthwhile.” Music and Literature
Review
“Shihors slim book presents us with an extraordinary cast of characters. . . . The imaginative landscape of the stories evokes a vanished Europe, rather than the contemporary Middle East, and the book is haunted by images of exile. . . . Shihors characters are survivors of a nightmare world, and they live with the dread of losing everything again.” Tom Sperlinger
Review
“
Days Bygone is a window onto the extraordinary mind of Rachel Shihor. There is no question that she is a great writer—only a master could make such originality feel inevitable. The only question is why so few people have had the chance to read her.”
Synopsis
More than 45 individual pieces of varying length and style. Aphorisms, flash fiction, and short stories commingle to create a truly fantastic world and idiosyncratic view of the human condition. In these tales we come across reckless she-goats, morose fish, somnambulistic theologians, poignant old ladies – not to mention dying dictators and dead poets. The original Hebrew text, published here for the first time, appears side by side with Ornan Rotem’s translation into English. Playfully interspersed throughout the text are typograms by the translator that take their inspiration from both the Hebrew and Roman alphabets.
Synopsis
Four excerpts from Rachel Shihor’s novella Yankinton have been selected, and translated from the Hebrew for this cahier. These poignant and humorous tales are as much about the act of recollection as they are about the remembered Tel Aviv of the 1940s. In a playful and yet muted style, Shihor tells of the everyday life of a child beginning to grasp her surroundings. Six works by the painter David Hendler further explore the city.
About the Author
Rachel Shihor has taught philosophy at Tel Aviv University. She is the author of The Vast Kingdom, The Tel Avivians, and Days Bygone, the last available from Sylph Editions.Ornan Rotem is a book designer, translator, and publisher of Sylph Editions. He lives and works in London.
Table of Contents
Preface
Ornan Rotem
Days Bygone—four excerpts from Yankinton
1. My aunt, my fathers sister, chose a monkey
2. From time to time, my parents would go to the cinema
3. In those long early summer days
4. In those bygone days I did not know
Remarks and Notes
Remarks on the translation
A note on the images
Colophon