Negev, Eilat

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NEGEV, Eilat

PERSONAL: Born in Saratoga Springs, NY; children: two. Education: Hebrew University, Israel, B.A., two M.A. degrees.

ADDRESSES: Home—Jerusalem, Israel. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Carroll & Graf, 245 West 17th St., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10011-5300. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author and journalist. Documentary radio producer for Israeli Radio, 1980s; chief literary correspondent for Yedioth Achronot, 1990—.

WRITINGS:

'Sihot Intimiyot (interviews; title means "Intimate Conversations"), Yedi 'ot aharonot (Tel-Aviv, Israel), 1995.

Hayim Peratiyim (interviews; title means "Private Lives"), Yedi 'ot aharonot (Tel-Aviv, Israel), 2001.

Close Encounters with Twenty Israeli Writers, introduction by Risa Domb, Vallentine Mitchell (Portland, OR), 2003.

(With Yehuda Koren) In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe—A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor of interviews to various publications, including London Guardian and London Daily Telegraph.

Author's work has also been translated into German, French, Dutch, Hungarian, Korean, and Hebrew.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Researching a book on Assia Wevil, poet Ted Hughes's lover, with Yehuda Koren.

SIDELIGHTS: Born in the United States and raised in Israel, journalist and author Eilat Negev got her start in radio. She hosted her own program on Israeli Radio during the 1980s, for which she served as documentary producer and profiled various artists, writers, and musicians. Her interviews have appeared in a variety of publications, primarily in Yedioth Achronot, the major daily newspaper in Israel, for which she serves as chief literary correspondent. Negev's interview of British poet Ted Hughes was one of the last given by the writer, and appeared in the London Daily Telegraph in two parts after Hughes's death.

Over the course of her career, Negev has also interviewed such noted individuals as Salman Rushdie, Arthur Miller, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, Paul Auster, and Erica Jong. Two collections of Negev's interviews have been published in Hebrew: 'Sihot Intimiyot and Hayim Peratiyim. A collection of twenty profiles of noted Israeli writers, Close Encounters with Twenty Israeli Writers was also published in English.

With In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe—A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust, Negev and collaborator Yehuda Koren tell the inspirational story of the Ovitz family, the majority of whom were dwarves, and how their affliction actually enabled them to endure the horrors of the Holocaust. Negev researched the subject thoroughly and interviewed Perla, the youngest Ovitz daughter and last surviving member of the family, as well as various other relatives. The book traces the family's experiences from the train that transported them to Auschwitz in May of 1944 to their subsequent separation from other inmates and their housing in better rooms. Although they received preferential treatment, they were also subjected to experiments by notorious Nazi physician Josef Mengele until Russian troupes liberated the camp. The Ovitz family held the distinction of being only one of two extended families to have all their members survive Auschwitz.

John Green, reviewing In Our Hearts We Were Giants for Booklist, commented that "the sometimes melodramatic writing detracts a bit from the inherently powerful story, but this is a quirky, illuminating addition to Holocaust history." A contributor to Publishers Weekly commented favorably on both the research into the family's history and the information regarding dwarves, adding that "the read drama—aside from the horror of the Holocaust—is in the relationships the Ovitzes formed with Mengele as well as with one another." Istvan Deak, writing in the New York Review of Books, stated that Negev tells an "amazing story sympathetically and eloquently told."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, June 1, 2004, John Green, review of In Our Hearts We Were Giants: The Remarkable Story of the Lilliput Troupe—A Dwarf Family's Survival of the Holocaust, p. 1690.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2004, review of In Our Hearts We Were Giants, p. 484.

New York Review of Books, March 10, 2005, Istvan Deak, review of In Our Hearts We Were Giants.

Publishers Weekly, May 17, 2004, review of In Our Hearts We Were Giants, p. 41.