Orly Castel-Bloom

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One of the leading voices of contemporary Israeli writing, Orly Castel-Bloom is a celebrated Israeli novelist, feted for her unique post-modern prose style. 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.

 

Dolly City, her much lauded 1992 novel, has been included in UNESCO’s Collection of Representative Works; it was nominated in 2007 as one of the ten most important books published since the creation of the State of Israel, and in 2013 was named by Tablet magazine as one of the 101 Great Jewish Books in English translation. Castel-Bloom’s work has been published in translation in 14 languages, her creative output encompassing novels, short story collections, and a book for children.

 

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, her most recent book, was awarded the Sapir Prize—Israel’s premier prize for fiction—for 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.”

 

Castel-Bloom has taught at Harvard, UCLA, UC Berkeley, NYU, Oxford, and Cambridge. Presently, she teaches creative writing at Tel Aviv University.

 

Novel: An Egyptian Novel

Novel: Biotope

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