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Between Life and Death
In Between Life and Death , famed Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk (“one of the most innovative, brilliant novelists in the Western World” — New York Times ) describes the four months during which he lay unconscious in a Tel Aviv hospital, hovering between the world of the living and that of the dead. With his unique blend of playfulness and fearlessness, Kaniuk attempts to penetrate his own lost consciousness and understand what led him to fight for his life with such desperate stubbornness.
With rare sincerity and great courage, Kaniuk goes back to his own death throes and reprieve, as well as to the waystations of his life. The story shifts between memory and illusion, imagination and testimony. Kaniuk inquires into the place of death in society, the human lust for life and relationships between human beings, among whom we find soldiers in battle, friends and family. Events and people—some real, some not—blend into a vast fresco, a larger-than-life story about life itself.
Kaniuk also writes about the Jewish people, the Holocaust survivors in his childhood neighborhood, heroic stories and battles on which he was raised and the 1948 War of Independence in which he fought. This book, in which the author announces his rebirth at the age of seventy-four, is the final literary testament of one of the world’s greatest overlooked writers.
Yoram Kaniuk (1930 - 2013) was born in Tel Aviv and took part in Israel's War of Independence in 1948. A painter, journalist, and theater critic, he was best known as a novelist. His 29 books include The Acrophile (1960), Himmo , King of Jerusalem (1968), Adam Resurrected (1971), Rockinghorse (1977), Confessions of a Good Arab (1984), His Daughter (1987), Commander of the Exodus (1999), The Last Jew (2006), 1948 (2010) and Between Life and Death , and have been translated into twenty languages. He won the Bialik Prize, the French Prix de Droits de l'Homme, the Israeli President's Prize, the Newman Prize and the Sapir Prize for Literature.
Barbara Harshav has been translating works from French, German, Hebrew and Yiddish for over twenty years and has currently published over forty books of translation including works of poetry, drama, fiction, philosophy, economics, sociology, and history.
“A stunning tale. Nothing suits Kaniuk's writing like this semi-consciousness that is conducive to a free association of images and sensations… Of this dark tale, Kaniuk has said that with the exception of the Book of Job, it is the funniest text ever written about death… In Between Life and Death , laughter is present in his self-mockery, in his ironic sketches of his fellow men, in the surreal situations he describes, and the sometimes outrageous shortcuts he permits himself.”
— Le Monde des livres
“Kaniuk's Between Life and Death is a unique piece of travel literature, a powerfully eloquent text which takes the reader into a land, which is at once a no-man's-land and yet unmistakably Kaniuk-land… Kaniuk has proved once again that he is not only the most outlandish and the most radical among Israel's authors, but also the youngest and the most courageous.”
— Kulturzeit ( Zeit )
“Kaniuk’s best novel to date… The author captures a rare voice, a tone which is elegiac, full of rhythm, paratactic, and irresistible in its pull… It achieves excellence and transparent wonder.”
— Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“Kaniuk's characteristic, unmistakable style of narrating and his passionate, fascinating language make this memoir a gripping reading experience."
— Die Welt
With rare sincerity and great courage, Kaniuk goes back to his own death throes and reprieve, as well as to the waystations of his life. The story shifts between memory and illusion, imagination and testimony. Kaniuk inquires into the place of death in society, the human lust for life and relationships between human beings, among whom we find soldiers in battle, friends and family. Events and people—some real, some not—blend into a vast fresco, a larger-than-life story about life itself.
Kaniuk also writes about the Jewish people, the Holocaust survivors in his childhood neighborhood, heroic stories and battles on which he was raised and the 1948 War of Independence in which he fought. This book, in which the author announces his rebirth at the age of seventy-four, is the final literary testament of one of the world’s greatest overlooked writers.
Yoram Kaniuk (1930 - 2013) was born in Tel Aviv and took part in Israel's War of Independence in 1948. A painter, journalist, and theater critic, he was best known as a novelist. His 29 books include The Acrophile (1960), Himmo , King of Jerusalem (1968), Adam Resurrected (1971), Rockinghorse (1977), Confessions of a Good Arab (1984), His Daughter (1987), Commander of the Exodus (1999), The Last Jew (2006), 1948 (2010) and Between Life and Death , and have been translated into twenty languages. He won the Bialik Prize, the French Prix de Droits de l'Homme, the Israeli President's Prize, the Newman Prize and the Sapir Prize for Literature.
Barbara Harshav has been translating works from French, German, Hebrew and Yiddish for over twenty years and has currently published over forty books of translation including works of poetry, drama, fiction, philosophy, economics, sociology, and history.
“A stunning tale. Nothing suits Kaniuk's writing like this semi-consciousness that is conducive to a free association of images and sensations… Of this dark tale, Kaniuk has said that with the exception of the Book of Job, it is the funniest text ever written about death… In Between Life and Death , laughter is present in his self-mockery, in his ironic sketches of his fellow men, in the surreal situations he describes, and the sometimes outrageous shortcuts he permits himself.”
— Le Monde des livres
“Kaniuk's Between Life and Death is a unique piece of travel literature, a powerfully eloquent text which takes the reader into a land, which is at once a no-man's-land and yet unmistakably Kaniuk-land… Kaniuk has proved once again that he is not only the most outlandish and the most radical among Israel's authors, but also the youngest and the most courageous.”
— Kulturzeit ( Zeit )
“Kaniuk’s best novel to date… The author captures a rare voice, a tone which is elegiac, full of rhythm, paratactic, and irresistible in its pull… It achieves excellence and transparent wonder.”
— Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“Kaniuk's characteristic, unmistakable style of narrating and his passionate, fascinating language make this memoir a gripping reading experience."
— Die Welt
225 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
9 people are currently reading
130 people want to read
About the author
Yoram Kaniuk
47 books29 followersYoram Kaniuk (Hebrew: יורם קניוק) was an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theater critic.
Winner of the Bialik Prize for Children's Literature (1991).
Winner of the Bialik Prize for Children's Literature (1991).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 17, 2017
The day after I started this book about an elderly man between life and death in the hospital, my Pepere was admitted to the hospital-between life and death.
I live across the country from him, so each day I would receive an update from the family. Each night I would return to this book and wonder how parallel the stories were. Pepere was a war veteran too. Pepere had pneumonia too. Pepere reminisced too.
The final quarter of this book prepared me for Pepere's fate, as if that were possible. Our protagonist was tired at 74. Pepere was 91. The day after I finished this book, Pepere died.
Quotes
"...and they didn't know who he was and they dug him a grave and what could they write on it? 'Solitary.' Years later they started writing 'Anonymous,' but the word 'Solitary' was more powerful." (109)
"...there are so many answers that there is no answer." (111)
"...death is the wisdom of the body to forget life and pain." (126)
"There's nothing more frustrating in the cell of those doomed to the ICU than the inability to be understood by those around you." (149)
I live across the country from him, so each day I would receive an update from the family. Each night I would return to this book and wonder how parallel the stories were. Pepere was a war veteran too. Pepere had pneumonia too. Pepere reminisced too.
The final quarter of this book prepared me for Pepere's fate, as if that were possible. Our protagonist was tired at 74. Pepere was 91. The day after I finished this book, Pepere died.
Quotes
"...and they didn't know who he was and they dug him a grave and what could they write on it? 'Solitary.' Years later they started writing 'Anonymous,' but the word 'Solitary' was more powerful." (109)
"...there are so many answers that there is no answer." (111)
"...death is the wisdom of the body to forget life and pain." (126)
"There's nothing more frustrating in the cell of those doomed to the ICU than the inability to be understood by those around you." (149)
November 27, 2016
Meditative and thoughtful. I was not familiar with Kaniuk's writing and now plan to seek him out. This is an accessible and contemplative book that you should remember is written by a man who was a literary critic as well as a novelist. There's a measure of arrogance here and it's not always as straightforward as it could be. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC.
October 31, 2021
Too graphic for me
August 17, 2021
just affirmed to myself that autobiographical stuff about people i don’t know is not my most enjoyable genre. the cover is pretty though
November 4, 2017
PEN Translation finalist 2017. In 2007, Israeli writer Yoram Kaniuk fell into a four-month coma in a Tel Aviv hospital following the removal of cancerous tissue from his intestines. This short memoir (apparently part fiction, part nonfiction) recounts his thoughts and hallucinations during that time. The book is not easy reading, being stream of consciousness, rambling, paratactic, and somewhat disjointed. It also relies on a knowledge of the Jewish religion and experience, particularly that found in Tel Aviv and Israel. For many readers, the constant shifts from descriptions of memories to dreams to waking life will be more confusing than elucidating. For me, the brief chapter at the end, which describes his rehabilitating walks through Tel Aviv with his physical therapist, was the most rewarding part of the book, written in a straightforward, life affirming style.
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December 14, 2016"Less known to American readers than he deserves, Yoram Kaniuk is a strange and orthogonal writer, never lining up with the pieties his audience might be expected to harbor." Review by Ari Hoffman for the Jewish Book Council.
June 17, 2012
Very disappointing.
March 28, 2017
“Yoram Kaniuk is one of the most innovative, brilliant novelists in the Western World.”
—The New York Times
“Of the novelists I have discovered in translation... the three for whom I have the greatest admiration are Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Peter Handke, and Yoram Kaniuk.”
—Susan Sontag
“One of Israel’s greatest and least celebrated writers”
—Nicole Krauss
“It’s a shame that this recently deceased multi-award-winning Israeli author isn’t as well known here as, say, Amos Oz or A.B. Yehoshua, because as evidenced by this final novel he was a prose master. Written after he awoke from a four-month-long coma, it fictionalizes that experience in surprisingly absorbing detail. Unpitying, observational, and fiercely flowing, the clinical account of the protagonist’s hospitalization feels almost like a beautiful ballet, but what really makes it work is that it’s interwoven sentence by sentence with near hallucinatory memories of the speaker’s life in Palestine and then Israel. (Kaniuk himself was born in Tel Aviv in 1930 and fought in the War of Independence.) The result is both a rich tapestry of a life gone by and a contemporary appreciation of a near-death experience. How did Kaniuk manage it? “Maybe because I grew up woven in that sea and the melody was in me,” says his alter ego at one point, fittingly. VERDICT Captivating for many readers.”
—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
—The New York Times
“Of the novelists I have discovered in translation... the three for whom I have the greatest admiration are Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Peter Handke, and Yoram Kaniuk.”
—Susan Sontag
“One of Israel’s greatest and least celebrated writers”
—Nicole Krauss
“It’s a shame that this recently deceased multi-award-winning Israeli author isn’t as well known here as, say, Amos Oz or A.B. Yehoshua, because as evidenced by this final novel he was a prose master. Written after he awoke from a four-month-long coma, it fictionalizes that experience in surprisingly absorbing detail. Unpitying, observational, and fiercely flowing, the clinical account of the protagonist’s hospitalization feels almost like a beautiful ballet, but what really makes it work is that it’s interwoven sentence by sentence with near hallucinatory memories of the speaker’s life in Palestine and then Israel. (Kaniuk himself was born in Tel Aviv in 1930 and fought in the War of Independence.) The result is both a rich tapestry of a life gone by and a contemporary appreciation of a near-death experience. How did Kaniuk manage it? “Maybe because I grew up woven in that sea and the melody was in me,” says his alter ego at one point, fittingly. VERDICT Captivating for many readers.”
—Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews