Haim Gouri

Haim Gouri (Hebrew: חיים גורי‎; born October 9, 1923, Tel Aviv) is an Israeli poet, novelist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker.

Biography

Haim Gouri was born in Tel Aviv. After studying at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School, he joined the Palmach and completed a commander's course. He participated in the bombing of a British radar station being used to track Aliyah Bet ships carrying illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine. In 1947 he was sent to Hungary to assist Holocaust survivors to emigrate to Mandate Palestine. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he was a deputy company commander in the Palmach's Negev Brigade.

Gouri studied literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Sorbonne in Paris. As a journalist he worked for Lamerhav and later, Davar. He achieved fame with his coverage of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann.

Gouri lives with his wife, Aliza, in Jerusalem.

Literary career

Gouri's first published poem, Sea Voyage, appeared in Mishmar, edited by Abraham Shlonsky, in 1945. His first complete volume of poetry, Flowers of Fire, was published in 1949 following the Israeli War of Independence.

Awards and honors

• The film The 81st Blow, which he wrote, co-produced, and co-directed, was nominated for the 1974 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It is part of a powerful Holocaust trilogy that includes The Last Sea and Flames in the Ashes.
• In 1975, Gouri was awarded the Bialik Prize for literature.
• In 1988, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for Hebrew poetry.
• In 1998, he won the Uri Zvi Grinberg award.
• In 2016, Gouri rejected an award from the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport of the annual 50,000 shekel prize for “Zionist works of art”.

Published works

Poetry

• Flowers of Fire, Years of Fire (1949)
• Poems of the Seal (1954)
• Compass Rose (1960)
• Movement to Touch (1968)
• Gehazi Visions (1974)
• The Eagle Line (1975)
• Words in My Love-Sick Blood (selected poems in English translation). Detroit: Wayne State University, 1996, ISBN 0-8143-2594-7.
• The Poems, in two volumes (1998)

Fiction

• The Chocolate Deal (1965). English translations: New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968, ISBN 1-125-15196-X. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-8143-2800-8.
• The Crazy Book (1971)
• The Interrogation, The Story of Reuel (1980)

Non-fiction

• Facing the Glass Booth: the Jerusalem Trial of Adolf Eichmann (1962). English translation: Detroit: Wayne State University, 2004, ISBN 0-8143-3087-8.
• Pages of Jerusalem, notes (1968)

Documentary films

• The 81st Blow (Ha-Makah Hashmonim V'Echad, 1974), distributed with English subtitles by "American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims"
• The Last Sea (Ha-Yam Ha'Aharon, 1980)
• Flames in the Ashes (Pnei Hamered, 1985)

See also

• List of Israel Prize recipients
• List of Bialik Prize recipients

External links

• "Haim Gouri" (capsule biography and bibliography) at the Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature.
• "Haim Gouri" in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
• "[1] Hebrew article about the poet in later life, retrieved from ynet 28 November 2012.