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

This anthology of contemporary fiction and poetry by Israeli women writers includes works originally written in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, and English.

This book introduces the powerful and provocative new fiction and poetry of Israel's women writers to an English-speaking audience. Read together, the stories and poems in this book will help to create a more sophisticated understanding of Middle Eastern passions and realities, and will foster a wealth of discussion about the meanings of homeland, exile, and diaspora; women's sexuality and spirituality; gender roles; the legacy of the Holocaust; the tensions and reconciliations of religion and secular life; the effects of war; and the power of memory.

In her introduction, Miriyam Glazer vividly reconstructs the diversities, tensions, and complexity of current Israeli literature, and the book reflects the multiculturality of modern-day Israel by including stories and poems originally written in Arabic, Russian, Hebrew, and English. Brief biographical and critical introductions are provided for each writer, and the book features specially commissioned and new translations of twenty stories and seventy-five poems, many available here for the first time in English.

"This book significantly expands the canon of contemporary literature available to English-speaking readers through excellent translations of important writers. Glazer coherently organizes and introduces the work of, arguably, every significant Israeli woman poet and prose writer today through adept and readable translations." -- Andrew Vogel Ettin, Wake Forest University

"This is a book of genuine distinction. The selection of writers and poets can scarcely be improved upon, and the translations are all of high quality. There is at present nothing in print in English comparable to this book in scope and variety." -- Stanley F. Chyet, Hebrew Union College