Today is the 70th birthday of writer David Grossman. Due to the tragic events of October 7 and the difficult war we are in since then, the successful writer has avoided festive events.
On the occasion of his 70th birthday, “From the Beginning” is being published (“The New Library” Kibbutz Hameeded Mark Books) a book that includes a story and a novella which are Grossman’s first two works “Khamor”, which were slightly delayed before the release of the current edition. The novella “Ratz” was rewritten by the writer for its inclusion in the second volume of the “New Anthology” The New Library, 2000.
The editor Menachem Perry dedicated a preface to “From the Beginning” which in part appears on the back cover: “In the middle of 1980, a brown envelope arrived from Jerusalem to the magazine ‘Simen Kera’ and inside it a story called ‘Donkeys’, by an unknown author named David Grossman (with Yod in ‘David’) The story was written with an overflowing talent, and was unusual in its materials in the Israeli fiction of those times. It was printed in the magazine and inaugurated the relationship that continues to this day between David Grossman and the exclamation mark books. At the beginning of 1981, Grossman brought us the novella ‘Ratz’, which he began to write more Before ‘serious’ – a foreboding story, which already contains many of the situations that Grossman will return to later in his writing.
“Over the years, Grossman has given us more and more tools to understand our world and ourselves. As a tribute to the writer, a person and a friend, on his 70th birthday, we return to the first two stories for a renewed reading, ‘from the beginning’. They are presented here in refreshing versions. To Grossman’s old readers, Reading this story and novella is necessarily a double reading. The two invite you to recall the experience of the first reading and to marvel again at the magnitude of the achievement that was evident from the beginning. But Grossman’s books that followed soon come to mind and throw their light back. In the fascinating dialogue of the first stories with everything we loved later, the stories become these to others, and shades are revealed in them that we did not imagine.”
David Grossman was born on January 25, 1954 in the Kiryat HaYoval neighborhood in Jerusalem to his parents Michaela, a housewife, and Yitzchak, a bus driver. Nadav is his younger brother. From a young age he participated in radio programs. In the distant past he said he decided he wanted to be a writer in the midst of Friday cleanings of his apartment, after completing a degree in philosophy and theater. “Like Archimedes, the light came to me in the middle of the sponge: I don’t want to write works. I want to write stories” and that’s how he wrote his first story “Khamor”.
Since then, Grossman has published many books that have become bestsellers, including “Review the Value of Love”, “There Are Children Zig Zag”, “The Inner Grammar Book”, “Someone to Run With”, “Let Me Have the Knife”, “Falling Out of Time”, “A Woman Runs from the Gospel” “, “In the body I understand”, “Life plays a lot with you” and many more. He also wrote many children’s books, including the Itamar series of books (“Itamar Climbs Walls”, “Poz’s Book of Records”, “Wants a Sack of Flour”, “Uri’s Special Language”, “Hug” and more).
David Grossman is considered the most popular and successful author in Israel, as well as around the world. His books have been translated into many languages. In recent months, preparations have been made in various parts of the world to celebrate his 70th birthday. In Italy, an edition of all his writings is being published, in Germany ten of his books are being revised, in the Netherlands, his essays were compiled into a book titled “The Price We Pay” which became a bestseller.
Grossman is a decorated author. In 2017 he won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for his book “One Horse Enters the Bar” and a year later in 2018 he was crowned the winner of the Israel Prize for Literature.
David Grossman is married to Michal. They had three children Yonatan Uri and Ruti. His middle son, the late Uri, was killed in the Second Lebanon War. He lives in Mebasheret Zion.
