Meir Wieseltier

{{Infobox writer

| name = Meir Wieseltier

| image = File:מאיר ויזלטיר בבית אריאלה, 2021.jpg

| caption = Meir Wiseltier at Beit Ariela, 2021

| birth_date = {{birth date |1941|03|08}}

| birth_place = Moscow, Soviet Union

| death_date = {{death date and age|mf=yes|2023|3|30|1941|3|8}}

| death_place = Ramat Gan, Israel

| nationality = Israeli (since 1949)

| occupation = poet, translator, journalist

| language = Hebrew

| native_name = מאיר ויזלטיר

| native_name_lang = he

}}

Meir Wieseltier ({{Langx|he|מאיר ויזלטיר}}; March 8, 1941{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/wieseltier-meir-1941|title=Wieseltier, Meir 1941- | Encyclopedia.com|website=www.encyclopedia.com}} – March 30, 2023){{cite web |url=https://www.israelnationalnews.com/flashes/603720 |title=Israel Prize winner passes away at 82 |author= |date=March 30, 2023 |website=Arutz Sheva |publisher= |access-date= |quote=}} was an Israeli poet and translator. Wieseltier was awarded the 2000 Israel Prize.

Biography

Meir Wieseltier was born in Moscow in 1941, shortly before the German invasion of Russia. He was taken to Novosibirsk in southwestern Siberia by his mother and two older sisters. His father was killed while serving in the Red Army in Leningrad. After two years in Poland, Germany, and France, the family immigrated to Israel. Wieseltier grew up in Netanya.

In 1955, he moved to Tel Aviv, where he has lived ever since. He published his first poems at the age of eighteen. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In the early 1960s, he joined a group known as the Tel Aviv Poets. He was co-founder and co-editor of the literary magazine Siman Kriya, and a poetry editor for the Am Oved publishing house.[http://israel.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=3172 Meir Wieseltier profile], PoetryInternationalweb.org. Accessed September 12, 2022

Literary career

Wieseltier published 13 volumes of verse. He translated English, French, and Russian poetry into Hebrew. His translations include four of Shakespeare's tragedies, as well as novels by Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, E.M. Forster, and Malcolm Lowry. Wieseltier often wrote in the first person, assuming the role of a moralist searching for values in the midst of chaos. He penned powerful poems of social and political protest in Israel.Butt, Aviva. "A Surge of Poetry: The 'Younger Poets' of the State of Israel Period", Poets from a War Torn World. SBPRA, 2012: 27-39 (33-7). His voice is alternately anarchic and involved, angry and caring, trenchant and lyric.

Wieseltier was a poet in residence at the University of Haifa.

Awards

Among the many awards Wieseltier received are the following:

In 1977 and 2011 Wieseltier was the co-recipient Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works
In 1994, Wieseltier was the co-recipient (jointly with Hanoch Levin) of the Bialik Prize for literature.{{Cite web|title=List of Bialik Prize recipients 1933-2004 (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv Municipality website |url=http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Hebrew/_MultimediaServer/Documents/12516738.pdf |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217143811/http://www.tel-aviv.gov.il/Hebrew/_MultimediaServer/Documents/12516738.pdf |archivedate=December 17, 2007 }}
In 2000, he received the Israel Prize, for literature and poetry.{{Cite web| title = Israel Prize Official Site (in Hebrew) – Recipient's C.V. | url = http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashas/MeirViziltar/}}{{Cite web| title = Israel Prize Official Site (in Hebrew) – Judges' Rationale for Grant to Recipient | url = http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/PrasIsrael/Tashas/MeirViziltar/NimukeiAshoftimVizilter.htm}}

Published works

Shirim Iti'im (Slow Poems), 2000
Merudim Vesonatot (Merudim and Sonnets), 2009
Perek Alef, Perek Beit (Chapter 1, Chapter 2), 1967
Meah Shirim (100 Poems), 1969
Kakh (Take It), 1973
Davar Optimi, Asiyat Shirim (Something Optimistic, The Making of a Poem), 1976
Pnim Vahutz (Interior and Exterior), 1977
Motzah El Ha-Yam (Exit into the Sea), 1981
Kitzur Shnot Hashishim (The Concise Sixties) 1984
Ee Yevani (Greek Island) 1985
Michtavim Veshirim Aherim (Letters and other poems) 1986
Makhsan (Storehouse), 1994 [Mahsan]
The Flower of Anarchy, 2003, {{ISBN|978-0-520-23552-6}}
Forty, 2010, (Arbaim)
Davar Optimi, Asiyat Shirim (Something Optimistic, The Making of a Poem, a new edition + Appendix), 2012

References

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20090307012946/http://www.ithl.org.il/author_info.asp?id=282 Biography on the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20090306234237/http://www.huc.edu/faculty/faculty/pubs/nash_poetry_0202.shtml God and Man in the Poetry of Meir Wieseltier], Speech on the occasion of Wieseltier's visit to Hebrew Union College, Stanley Nash
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/aug/16/poetry.featuresreviews1 The Flag Parade] A poem by Wieseltier published in English by The Guardian
[http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/1118239.html Of Rebels, Wretches, Mongols and Kreplach], a tribute to Meir Wieseltier, Natan Zach, Haaretz{{Dead link|date=April 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Poem on Jerusalem' [https://www.yekum.org/2023/04/%d7%90%d7%9d-%d7%9c%d7%90-%d7%aa%d7%94%d7%99%d7%94-%d7%99%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%a9%d7%9c%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%a9%d7%99%d7%a8-%d7%9e%d7%a4%d7%95%d7%a8%d7%a1%d7%9d-%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%aa-%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%99%d7%a8/ אם לא תהיה ירושלים - שיר מפורסם מאת מאיר ויזלטיר בעברית ובתרגום לאנגלית, וגם הראיון הראשון עימו]

Category:1941 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:Israeli people of Russian-Jewish descent

Category:Soviet emigrants to Israel

Category:Jewish Israeli writers

Category:20th-century Israeli poets

Category:Israel Prize in literature recipients

Category:Israel Prize in Hebrew poetry recipients

Category:Academic staff of the University of Haifa

Category:Israeli translators

Category:English–Hebrew translators

Category:20th-century Israeli translators