Israeli writer opens book fest

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

Once again, the Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival features an all-star lineup. This year, it begins with renowned Israeli short story writer and filmmaker Etgar Keret.

The Sol and Shirley Kort Author Series features Keret in conversation with CBC’s Eleanor Wachtel on Nov. 26, while the book festival partners with the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival to present Keret’s (co-directed with his wife, Shira Geffen) award-winning film Meduzot (Jellyfish) on Nov. 27. This won’t be Keret’s first trip to Canada, but, he told the Independent, it will be his first visit to Vancouver. (He also noted that, for him, “Canada was always a kind of upgraded U.S., with slightly less violent and more socially conscious people.”)

Keret’s books – which include short story collections, graphic novels, children’s books and essay compilations – have been published in 31 languages in 35 countries. His writing has been published in the New York Times, Le Monde and the Guardian, among others, and more than 40 short films have been based on his stories, according to his website (etgarkeret.com).

Keret’s English-language feature films include Wristcutters (2006), based on Kneller’s Happy Campers (which appeared in the collection The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God), and $9.99 (2009), which intertwined several of Keret’s short stories into one feature-length claymation movie. His credits not only include writing, directing and acting in films – as well as television series (for example, in the 1990s, Ha-Hamisha Hakamerit and Kachol Amok) – but he also has co-written a play (with Jonathan Bar Giora) and is currently a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Noting that he was born in 1967 (in Tel Aviv), Keret’s biography describes him as “the most popular writer among Israel’s young generation.” In an e-mail interview with the Jewish Independent, he described his development as a writer.

“My brother once told me that many of my stories in my first story collection take place in buses while, in the third one, they take place in taxis and, in the most recent one, on planes: ‘One could follow the improvement in your social economic status through that change, but one thing for sure – you keep traveling and life doesn’t seem to get any easier.’

“Looking at my stories, I feel, too, that my life didn’t get any easier. Each collection deals with the things that bothered me at that time. My first story collection, written during my compulsory army service, dealt a lot with the relationship between an individual and a group, while my latest one, Suddenly a Knock on the Door (to be published in North America next March), has quite a few stories that talk about the difficulties of being a father.”

Throughout his fiction writing, there are several recurring themes. For instance, many of his stories contain biblical allusions or direct references to biblical texts. When asked by the Independent what role classical texts in general played for him and whether he purposefully inserts these layers of meaning into his stories, Keret said, “Nothing in my stories is premeditated or planned. Being an Israeli and a Jew who speaks and writes in Hebrew, the Bible has an important place in my identity and upbringing, but referring to it is not a thing I plan in advance.”

What about the talking dog in Kneller’s Happy Campers? Or the rats that Nachum teaches to become his friends in For Only 9.99 (Incl. Tax and Postage)?

“I write a lot about animals because I love animals and because I see in them a good and interesting point of view about humanity,” explained Keret. About his inspiration for such characters, he added, “The most influential animal-related story I can think of is Metamorphosis by Kafka. The Jewish tradition, especially the Chassidic tradition of storytelling, influenced me a lot. I also like fables and you can find many talking animals in them, too.”

A less cute, but equally prominent aspect of several of Keret’s stories is his use as characters people (and even things) that have died – most notably, Kneller’s Happy Campers is set in a world in which only people who have committed suicide live, so to speak.

“I do not know if there is an afterlife,” Keret told the Independent, “but I sure hope there is – I like living a lot and it would be wonderful to know that this current adventure will have its sequels. My use of afterlife in my stories [though] is mostly metaphorical. I use death in my stories only as a tool to speak about the living.”

And Keret has much to say on that score. He often does it with humor, but sometimes with brutally graphic images, such as in My Brother’s Depressed, a two-page story about a child who is attacked by a dog, which appears in Gaza Blues (that includes a story by Palestinian writer Samir El-Youssef). No matter how brief, amusing or unsettling, however, all of Keret’s writing seems to convey a statement about social justice or politics. In his interview with the Independent, Keret attributed some of that sense to his brother, who he described as an “anti-Zionist left-winger” and social activist. “But activism isn’t the only lesson I’ve had in moral responsibility,” he added. “I think that it is something very instinctive.”

It is an instinct that he evidently shares with his wife, who is a writer in her own right, as well as a director and actress. Keret and Geffen made Meduzot together. They also contributed one of the 22 three-minutes films collected by the Stories on Human Rights film project. An initiative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and produced by the nongovernmental organization ART for the World, the project marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with the shorts having to focus on one of the six themes of the declaration. Keret and Geffen’s film, What About Me?, which can be viewed online, was inspired by the dignity and justice theme. All of the shorts were combined into one film, with subtitles in the six languages in which the UN operates (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish).

Given that so much of his work has been translated into other languages, the Independent asked Keret how much of his writing, if any, gets lost in translation.

“Israel’s national poet, Byalik, said once that reading a work in translation is like kissing a lover through a handkerchief,” responded Keret. “Even if the translator is amazing, languages are different in nature and, when you need to transfer a sentence from one sentence to another, it will never say the same thing. Personally, as a writer, to have readers who can enjoy my work in a translation to another language has always felt like a miracle.”

And what about the translation from the written word to film? How does Keret see the two media with respect to their ability to tell a good story?

“The advantages and disadvantages of filmmaking compared to writing mostly deal with its collaborative effect,” he said. “It is a huge advantage because you can enjoy the fruits of the talents of many other people you collaborate with but, at the same time, you do not have the total control you have in a story. The difference between making a film and writing a book is, to me, the difference between a monologue and a dialogue.”

Festival’s closing night

Two very diverse events conclude the book festival on the night of Dec. 1.

The first features Man Booker Prize nominee and Canadian Jewish Book Award winner Alison Pick (Far to Go, House of Anansi, 2011) and veteran journalist, columnist and editor Keith Morgan (Ruta’s Closet, Shavl Publishing, 2008). In Holocaust Remembered, presented by the festival with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Pick will focus on her latest book, which “was inspired by the harrowing five-year journey Pick’s own grandparents embarked on from their native Czechoslovakia to Canada during the Second World War,” and Morgan will speak about Ruta’s Closet, in which Vancouverite Ruth Kron Sigal shares her some of her Holocaust survival story, “hoping that the lessons they teach will ensure that no child will hide in such a dark place again.” (Kron Sigal died in December 2008, shortly after the completion of Ruta’s Closet. “Critical message of survival,” an interview with Morgan, can be found at jewishindependent.ca, May 20, 2011.)

The second closing event is Fête the Fest: A Festive Literary Cocktail Party, with New York-based food writer Danyelle Freeman, whose most recent book is Try This: Traveling the Globe without Leaving the Table (HarperCollins, 2011). Try This isn’t a cookbook or a guide to eating in other countries, but rather a memoir of sorts that tries to demystify foreign food that you will be able to find in any larger metropolitan city in North America, including, of course, Vancouver. It also has some fun foodie facts and some tips on table manners – which might come in handy at the party.

The Cherie Smith JCCGV Jewish Book Festival features more than 30 events. Many events are free, but tickets for the opening on Saturday, Nov. 26, 7:30 p.m., are $20; the screening of Jellyfish on Nov. 27, 10 a.m., is $14 (includes coffee and bagels); Holocaust Remembered, on Thursday, Dec. 1, 7 p.m., is $14; and the Fête the Fest cocktail party on Dec. 1, 8 p.m., is $36 (includes samplers and wine). To purchase tickets for these and other events, drop by the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, visit jccgv.com/content/jewish-book-fest or call 604-257-5111.

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