Chana Kronfeld, author of "The Full Severity of Compassion: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai" (Stanford, 2016) will speak on Thursday, October 13 at 4:00 pm in the SML Lecture Hall about Yehuda Amichai (1924–2000) – one of the most important and well-known Hebrew poets of the twentieth century, and an internationally influential literary figure whose poetry has been translated into some 40 languages.
Amichai's archive is in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Professor Kronfeld, an Israeli who has been teaching at UC Berkeley for many years and has been following Amichai’s poetry both as a friend and as a scholar, sets out in her book to explore some of the puzzles of his poetry and its reception. Amichai’s verse often sets itself against nationalistic narratives but he is also well-known for his beautiful love poetry. As a translator of Amichai’s poetry, Kronfeld will speak about the tension between the 'personal' and the 'national' in his work. In the course of writing her book, she did research on the poet in the Amichai Archive in the Beinecke Library.
The talk is being sponsored by the Yale University Library and the Yale Program in Judaic Studies. A reception will follow the presentation and all are welcome to attend!