MANDEL, Miriam B. 1942-

PERSONAL:

Born June 23, 1942, in San Juan, Puerto Rico; immigrated to Israel, 1979; daughter of Paul (an architect) and Gertrude S. (an office manager) Bauer. Education: Attended Harpur College of the State University of New York and Ohio State University. Hobbies and other interests: Music (particularly opera), twentieth-century art, bullfighting.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel; fax: 972-3-640-7312. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, editorial assistant in Graduate School of Education, 1968-71; Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel, member of faculty, 1979—, currently senior lecturer in English. Translator from Spanish into English.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association of America, American Literature Association, Hemingway Society, Fitzgerald Society.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grants from United States-Israel Educational Fund, 1990, John F. Kennedy Library, 1991, 1995, and National Endowment for the Humanities, 1995-98.

WRITINGS:

Reading Hemingway: The Facts in the Fictions, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 1995.

Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon: The Complete Annotations, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 2002.

Hemingway's The Dangerous Summer: The Complete Annotations, Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD), 2003.

Contributor to books, including Literature and Life: Making Connections in the Classroom, edited by Patricia Phelan, National Council of Teachers of English (Urbana, IL), 1990; Hemingway Repossessed, edited by Kenneth Rosen, Praeger (Westport, CT), 1994; and Notable Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice in Hemingway, edited by Lawrence Broer and Gloria Holland, University of Alabama Press (Tuscaloosa, AL), in press. Contributor to periodicals, including Studies in Short Fiction, Persuasions, International Fiction Review, Housman Society Journal, Hemingway Review, Journal of Modern Literature, and Resources for American Literary Study.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Hemingway's Nonfiction: Annotating Africa and France (tentative title), for Scarecrow Press (Lanham, MD); editing A Companion to Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon," Camden House/Boydell & Brewer (Rochester, NY).

SIDELIGHTS:

Miriam B. Mandel told CA: "Even before I was born, my life took many unexpected turns. Because of Hitler's persecution of the Jews, my parents moved from Vienna, Austria, where the family had lived for generations, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I was born. As a result, my brother and I grew up trilingual (German, Spanish, English), and this 'multiculturality' has shaped my life in a variety of ways. Another unexpected turn was my immigration to Israel in 1979, which added Hebrew to my life, and my life at Tel Aviv University, where I was required to publish. This demand led to an active writing career that I had never envisioned for myself. Writing my books has been extremely pleasurable, and I recommend historical research and literary annotation to all aspiring scholars. It helps one read, think, observe, and enjoy places and activities which one might never have otherwise encountered.

"I find that research makes any subject more interesting. My research on Hemingway, facilitated by my ability to read all the languages he knew, has led me to—among the many subjects which interested him—bullfighting. The bullfight established the moral and cultural background of several of Hemingway's best short stories and two of his major novels (The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls). The subject so fascinated Hemingway that he wrote two entire nonfiction volumes about it: Death in the Afternoon (his longest book) and The Dangerous Summer (the last book he wrote). Studying it, I too became fascinated by the history of bullfighting, its contemporary manifestations, and its significance to Spanish culture and art, as well as to Hemingway's aesthetics.

"From Austrian backgrounds to Puerto Rican beginnings to Israeli maturity to the pleasures of the Spanish plaza, it has been an interesting life. I wonder where it will take me next."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

College Literature, June, 1997, Stephen P. Clifford, review of Reading Hemingway: The Facts in the Fictions, p. 172.

Hemingway Review, fall, 1995, Earl Rovit, review of Reading Hemingway, p. 105; fall, 2002, Keneth Kinnamon, review of Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon: The Complete Annotations, p. 118.