S. Y. Agnon - Nobel Prize in Literature, 1966 (3 books)

SHMUEL YOSEF AGNON (1888-1970) was born in eastern Galicia (then Austria-Hungary) and immigrated to Palestine in 1908, where he became one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. He twice received the Bialik Prize for literature (1934 and 1950) as well as the Israel Prize for literature (1954 and 1958). In 1966, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966 "for his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people".

Called "a man of unquestionable genius" and "one of the great storytellers of our time," Agnon's unique style and language influenced the writing of subsequent generations of Hebrew authors. Much of his writing attempts to recapture the lives and traditions of a former time, but his stories are never a simple act of preservation. Agnon's tales deal with the most important psychological and philosophical problems of his generation. "Via realistic and surrealistic modes," the New York Times wrote, "Agnon has transmuted in his many words the tensions inherent in modern man's loss of innocence, and his spiritual turmoil when removed from home, homeland and faith."

ONLY YESTERDAY (1945), his most celebrated work, tells a seemingly simple tale about a man who immigrates to Palestine with the Second Aliya -- the several hundred idealists who returned between 1904 and 1914 to work the Hebrew soil as in Biblical times and revive Hebrew culture. The novel quickly became recognized as a monumental work of world literature, but not only for its vivid historical reconstruction of Israel's founding society. This epic novel also engages the reader in a fascinating network of meanings, contradictions, and paradoxes all leading to the question: what, if anything, controls human existence?

TWENTY-ONE STORIES collects a number of Agnon's short fictions and is a good representation of his subtle form of writing. He is heavily influenced by fable and fairy tales, and many of the stories have the dream-like, simple quality of a children's stories ("The Lady and the Peddler", "First Kiss"). A number of these stories are considered masterpieces ("Agunot", "The Doctor's Divorce"). Although deeply indebted to the Jewish Diaspora experience, with its traditions and religious context, Agnon was very much a modernist. All the stories in this collection embody a kind of disjointedness which says less about the skills of the writer and more about the world he wrote about: this is a world of discontinuities where there are often strange shifts in daily life and the end comes quite abruptly.

TWO TALES contains two short novellas, each belonging to a different cycle in Agnon's literary corpus. "Betrothed" portrays a teacher, whose love for the sea and all that it holds leads him to the town of Jaffa. Though many pursue him, Rechnitz eschews romantic love for his studies until he can no longer resist. The second tale, "Edo and Enam," is set after World War II in Jerusalem and considers how love evolves throughout the course of a marriage. Both stories transcend their respective locales and cast of characters as tradition and mythic symbols interplay with reality.


The following books are in PDF format:

* ONLY YESTERDAY (Princeton UP, 2002). Translated by Barbara Harshav.

* TWENTY-ONE STORIES (Schocken, 1970). Edited by Nahum N. Glatzer.

* TWO TALES: Betrothed / Edo and Enam (Schocken, 1966). Translated by Walter Lever.