The Professor Dan Miron Lecture in Hebrew Literature with Orly Castel Bloom

In 1992 Orly Castel Bloom published in Israel her novel Dolly City, about a fantastical, unspecified, bustling city, controlled by the vehicles which were transformed into a goal. The city’s name – Dolly City – is connected to the protagonist’s name – meaning, it is Dolly’s city, the city of her mind, of her story. The borders between her and the city are completely blurred.

In 2022, exactly thirty years later, she wrote an entirely realistic novel, Biotope - meaning a scientific, almost biological exploration of one specific habitat. The story – and the biotope – take place in a specific, central and particularly busy street corner in Tel Aviv, named London Minister. This is the intersection of Shaul Ha’Melech and Iben Gvirol, where the French-Jewish protagonist Joseph happens to live, and he is the one describing the environment, taking into account all of its components: the restaurants, the stores, the district court, the opera, the theater, the museum and the addicts who frequent the clinic in the next street to get their Methadone fix.

In her talk she will discuss the two cities and two protagonists, having understood now that the city she wrote of in my youth and the one she wrote of thirty years later are in fact the same city. The protagonists, however – a woman in one case, a man in the other – couldn’t be more different.

One of the leading voices in contemporary Israeli writing, Orly Castel Bloom is a celebrated Israeli novelist, feted for her unique post-modern prose. After studying Film at the Beit Zvi Institute and Tel Aviv University, Castel Bloom published her first collection of stories in 1987 to critical acclaim and has been a leading voice in Hebrew literature ever since. Castel Bloom’s work has been translated into 14 languages, her creative output encompassing novels, short story collections, and a children’s book. Her numerous awards and accolades include the Tel Aviv Foundation Prize (1990), the Alterman Prize for Innovation (1993), The Neuman Prize (2003), the French WIZO Prize (2005), the Lea Goldberg Prize (2007), and the Rishon Le Zion Prize for Creativity in the Hebrew Language (2016). An Egyptian Novel was awarded the Sapir Prize—Israel’s premier prize for fiction—in 2015. The jury’s citation noted that “in this story, [Castel Bloom] broadens the canvas of Hebrew literature, in a unique manner setting out a decidedly Israeli story, one which has never been told before.” Biotope, her most recent novel, has been shortlisted for the 2024 Sapir Prize. Castel Bloom has taught at Harvard, UCLA, UC Berkeley, NYU, Oxford, and Cambridge. Presently, she teaches creative writing at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.

Supported by the generosity of the Knapp family.

Host or Publisher The Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University