Gutfreund, Amir 1963-

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Gutfreund, Amir 1963-

PERSONAL:

Born 1963, in Haifa, Israel; married a clinical psychologist; children: two. Education: Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), M.Sc.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Givatayim, Israel.

CAREER:

Israeli Air Force, lieutenant colonel; writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Sapir Prize for Literature, Mifal Hapayis National Lottery, 2003, for Ahuzot Ha-Hof.

WRITINGS:

Shoa Shelanu, Zmora Bitan (Tel-Aviv, Israel), 2000, translated by Jessica Cohen as Our Holocaust, Toby (New Milford, CT), 2006.

Ahuzot Ha-Hof (stories; title means "Shoreline Mansions"), Zmora Bitan (Lod, Israel), 2002.

World: A Little Later, Zmora Bitan (Or Yehudah, Israel), 2005.

Gutfreund's works have been translated into English, Dutch, and German.

SIDELIGHTS:

A lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Air Force, Amir Gutfreund began writing in his twenties but did not consider publishing his work until after his mother's death in 1995. Gutfreund's parents were Holocaust survivors, and the Holocaust has figured prominently in his writings, as he explained to Shiri Lev-Ari in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "Even if I write an instruction manual for a washing machine, it will always contain humor, and it will always contain the Holocaust. It's part of me." His first novel, Our Holocaust, was written in Hebrew and later translated into English, Dutch, and German. The book is semi-autobiographical and centers on two young Israeli cousins whose extended family—all Holocaust survivors—attempts to shelter them from the horrific stories of their pasts.

A Kirkus Reviews contributor called Our Holocaust "a moving and informative exploration of the thoughts and experiences of a young person surrounded by survivors." Booklist reviewer Hazel Rochman described it as a "haunting first novel." Michael Up-church, writing for the Seattle Times, further commented: "Gutfreund's writing is brilliant, his teasing narrative mesmerizing, and the thought behind it subtle and extraordinarily limber in its shadings of Jewish life under the Nazis."

Gutfreund's second book, Ahuzot Ha-Hof, won Israel's prestigious Sapir Prize for Literature in 2003. As reported by Lev-Ari, adjudicators stated that Gutfreund "brings to Hebrew literature a unique and surprising voice, which he has built through a mature and precise style. His language is both simple and elevated, and on every page of his books there is measured and effective irony.… Gutfreund invents amusing and hair-raising plots, repeatedly breaks the boundaries between the fantastic and the everyday, tests the passages and the encounter between Europe and Israel, and with a smile crosses back and forth over the seam line between the living and the dead."