Meir Shalev (born 1948 in Nahalal

Nahalal

-External links:** UNESCO* Jewish Agency for Israel*, "Jews made a garden" - aerial photo of Nahalal , and a girl from Girls' Agricultural Training Farm , at Google Books....

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

) is an Israeli writer. He is the son of the Jerusalemite poet Yitzchak Shalev. His cousin Zeruya Shalev

Zeruya Shalev

Zeruya Shalev is a bestselling Israeli author.Zeruya Shalev was born on Kibbutz Kinneret. She has an MA in Bible studies and works as a literary editor at Keshet publishing house...

 is also a writer.

Biography

He began his career by presenting ironic features on television and radio. He also moderated the program Erev Shabbat ("Friday night") on Israel channel one. In 1988 his first novel was published, The Blue Mountain

The Blue Mountain

The Blue Mountain is the English name of the first Novel of the Israeli author, Meir Shalev.Called Roman Russi in Hebrew , the original was published in 1988 and became a best-seller...

(Hebrew title Roman Russi [Russian novel]).

He has written non-fiction and children's books as well, and he writes a weekly column in the weekend edition of the newspaper Yediot Ahronot. In his column, Shalev comments satirically on government policy and laments the situation of the Israeli people.

Awards

• Juliet Club Prize (Italy)
• Chiavari (Italy)
• Entomological Prize (Israel)
• WIZO Prize (France, Israel, Italy)
• Bernstein Prize
  Bernstein Prize
  The Bernstein Prize is an annual Israeli literary award for writers 50 years of age and younger. The prize is awarded by the Bernstein Foundation, named after Mordechai Bernstein, who left money in his estate to establish a foundation in order to encourage young Hebrew writers...
  
   (original Hebrew novel category) (1989)
• Brenner Prize
  Brenner Prize
  The Brenner Prize is an Israeli literary prize awarded annually by the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel and the Haft Family Foundation.It was founded in the name of the author Yosef Haim Brenner and was first awarded in 1945....
  
   (Israel) for 'A Pigeon and a Boy'

In 2005, he was voted the 42nd-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet

Ynet

Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

Fiction

• 1988 The Blue Mountain ISBN 0060166916 (1988, originally published in Hebrew as Roman Rusi) Reprinted, 2010
• 1991 Esau ISBN 006019040X
• 1994 As a Few Days, also called The Four Meals ISBN 1841951145 and The Loves of Judith ISBN 0880016353
• 1998 His House in the Desert (or "Alone in the Desert")
• 2002 Fontanelle ISBN 3257235542
• 2006 A Pigeon and A Boy (originally published in Hebrew as Yona v'naar by Am Oved Publishers, Tel Aviv), translated by Evan Fallenberg, Random House, New York, ISBN 978-0-8052-4251-5
• 2011 About My Russian Grandmother and Her American Vacuum Cleaner ISBN 0805242872 (Memoir)
• 2011 Beginnings: Reflections on the Bible's Intriguing Firsts ISBN 0307717186 (Nonfiction)

Non-fiction

• 1985 Bible Now, a book containing interpretations of Hebrew Bible
  Hebrew Bible
  The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
  
   stories from his personal point of view, which first appeared in the newspaper Haaretz
  Haaretz
  Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
  
  .
• Elements of Conjuration
• 1995 Mainly About Love
• 1998 My Jerusalem
• 2008 In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible

Children's books

• 1982 Michael and the Monster of Jerusalem ISBN 965382001X
• 1987 Zohar's Dimples
• 1988 My Father Always Embarrasses Me
• 1990 Nehama the Louse
• 1993 How the Neanderthal Inadvertently Invented Kebab
• 1994 A flood, a snake and two arks
• 1995 The Tractor in the Sandbox
• 2000 Aunt Michal
• 2004 A lion at night
• 2004 Roni and Nomi and the Bear Yaacov
• A Louise Named Thelma
• A Lion in the Night
• 2007 Uncle Aaron and his rain

External links

• Meir Shalev, capsule biography and bibliography at Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature.
• "You were caught with your trousers down in a war of your own making", speech at Tel Aviv mass rally, May 2007