Renowned Israeli author Etgar Keret to speak at SU on Oct. 27

Thursday, October 15, 2009, By News Staff

Israeli author and Oscar winner Etgar Keret will visit Syracuse University on Tuesday, Oct. 27, to deliver a lecture and reading at 7 p.m. in the Hillel Lender Auditorium, 102 Walnut Place.

Keret is regarded as one of the pre-eminent writers to emerge from Israel in recent years. He is the author of short story books, as well as screenplays. He has been published in 22 languages and has won several awards, including the Israeli Ministry of Culture’s Cinema Prize. More than 40 short movies have been based on Keret’s stories, one of which won an American MTV Award in 1998.

Books by Keret include the bestselling “The Nimrod Flipout” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) and his most recent, “The Girl on the Fridge” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008). “The Girl on the Fridge” is Keret’s collection of past stories that made him Israel’s bestselling and most celebrated young writer.

Keret teaches at Ben Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, and he delivers lectures and readings throughout the United States. He has been called the voice of young Israel; many of his stories look lightheartedly at modern Israeli life.

“My prime motivation to write stories is that I want to read them. I would be very happy if somebody else had done it, but they’re all lazy … so I have to write it all by myself,” says Keret jokingly.

George Saunders, author of several short story collections and a professor of English in The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University, calls Keret a master of the short story. “I find Etgar and his writing completely unique and completely charming,” says Saunders.

Keret is speaking as part of the annual B. G. Rudolph Lecture in Judaic Studies. Other scholars and writers, such as Aharon Appelfeld and Robert Alter, have delivered the lecture, which was inaugurated in 1962.

Keret’s visit is cosponsored by the B. G. Rudolph Lecture in Judaic Studies, the Judaic Studies Program, SU Hillel and the Creative Writing Program. The lecture, reading and reception to follow are free and open to the public.