Known for his anti-occupation commitment, he was rewarded by the Foreign Medici Prize in 2012 for his “Retrospective” book.
Le Monde with AFP
The Israeli author Avraham Yehoshua, winner of the foreigner Medici Prize in 2012 and the figure of the Israeli anti-occupation left, died at the age of 85, announced, Tuesday, June 14, the Ichilov Hospital -Aviv. Born in Jerusalem in December 1936 of parents of Greek and Moroccan origins, he had published his first news in 1963. Since then, his novels and pieces have been translated from Hebrew in more than 30 languages, including French.
In 1995, he received the Israel Prize, more important cultural recognition in the country. And in 2012, he won the Medici Prize in the category foreign books for retrospective (Grasset), translated from Hebrew by Jean-Louis Allouche.
For Nitza Ben-Dov, professor of literature at the University of Haifa (North) who taught by his side, Yehoshua was the “greatest author” of Israel. “He went from surrealist stories and full of reveries, disconnected from time and space, to works rooted in Israeli culture and the present,” she told the France-Presse agency. The latest work of Avraham Yehoshua was imbued with psychology, influenced by his wife psychoanalyst, according to M me ben-dov.
“Warm and open”, eager for recognition, he could also be biting in front of his interlocutors, according to M me ben-dov. “He was a complex man, whose attitude towards the world was ambivalent. His awareness of the complexity of man, which he drew on his own experience, made his work plural”, -I still praised.
Member of the NGO B’tselem
Defender of the rights of Palestinians, Yehoshua was a member of B’tselem, Israeli organization for the defense of human rights and fervent opponent of the occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel. This association praised, on Tuesday, a man who “devoted his time and his energy to equality, peace and human rights for all”.
b’tselem Mourns the Passing of Distinguished Author A.B. Yehoshua. AlongSide a Brilliant Literary Career, Yehoshua… https://t.co/vvbqqlfdvt
The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, also paid tribute to him. The work of the writer “was inspired by our homeland and the cultural treasures of our people, representing us in a fine, faithful, compassionate portrait and sometimes reflecting a painful image of ourselves,” he said in a statement. “He evoked in us a mosaic of deep feelings,” he added.
avraham yehoshua must be buried on Wednesday in the cemetery of Ein Carmel in northern Israel.