AVIVA - NO

by Shimon Adaf

Aviva-no es el tercer libro de poesía de Shimon Adaf, el tema; la súbita muerte de su hermana, trastorna su mundo vital y poético, por lo que según sus propias palabras todo orden se revierte y el caos se instala. La naturaleza, la ciudad e incluso el idioma pierden sentido, delirio es la única guía que acepta. La pérdida de la hermana lo instala en la incongruencia y es incapaz de aceptar el consuelo. Su única manera de protesta es poner en evidencia la inconexión de las palabras y, por eso, su poesía se vuelve violenta y extrema. Aviva-no es una reflexión sobre el significado de la muerte y el punto de no retorno. Incluso, una intervención por parte del lector sobre el sentido apropiado de palabra por palabra más una íntima hermenéutica que ayude a la comprensión de lo que el duelo no logra.

Genres: Poetry

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Shimon Adaf (Hebrew: שמעון אדף) is one of the most vibrant, restless and stirring voices in contemporary Hebrew literature (both prose-fiction and poetry). He has so far written three poetry collections and eight books of prose fiction. For his first book of poems, Icarus' Monologue (1997), Adaf won the Israeli Ministry of Education Prize and parts of it have been included in the Israeli high school literature curriculum. For his fifth novel, Mox Nox (2011), Adaf won the prestigious Israeli Sapir Prize (2013) and his third novel, Sunburned Faces (2008), published in English by PS press (2013), appeared on The Guardian’s list of the best science fiction for 2013, alongside Stephen King and Margaret Atwood. He is currently the chair of the creative writing program at Ben Gurion University in Israel.

Reviews

[S P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aviva-No begins as an elegy for Shimon Adaf's deceased sister, Aviva: a name which means spring in Hebrew. These deeply tender and personal poems find grief as a "presence without end, a fleet of wounds / nearing the annulment of all limits". Most poems draw upon a mixture of prayers, Jewish mourning rituals and esoteric religious references in order to give language to the bodies of those who have departed as well as those left behind. Adaf attempts to break down the language of loss and remould it into something naturally regenerative; yet some of the wordplay, the dissonant registers and rhyme, do not entirely work in English. The cycle ends in the city of Sderot, near Gaza, having moved from the personal into a more political vision. This third, final section, with its almost theatrical depictions of collapse, feels dense and chaotic. Towards the end, a two-page spread of pitch-black squares, in lieu of any words, seems to affirm Adaf's realisation that language will always fail to adequately represent what he wishes to get across.