AUTHOR: RACHEL SHIHOR

Rachel Shihor is the author of Days Bygone and Stalin is Dead from Sylph Editions, and Days of Peace and Yankinton from Seagull Books. In a first for HAUS RED, the interview was conducted by phone. The following is a transcript of our conversation, lightly edited for clarity while attempting to remain true to the conversation with all of its mishearings and strivings for clarity

Nicholas Grosso [NG]: I was first introduced to your work through Sylph Editions and Ornan Rotem’s translation of excerpts from Yankinton, Days Bygone. Would you mind sharing your experience working with Ornan and publishing with Sylph Editions?

Rachel Shihor [RS]: Ornan Rotem — yes, he is a very intelligent person. He used to teach philosophy at Tel Aviv University for a few years and then he settled in England. He has a specialty as a writer also, sort of philosopher, a person who knows how to think and how to develop ideas. And he is cooperating with his wife, Num. He is the sort of somebody who is a perfectionist, everything until the last last last drop of perfection, if it’s possible. What can I tell you more? Both of them helped me a lot in the beginning with publishing.

NG: He published and translated your first work into English?

RS: Yes, but now the last book, Yankinton, [from Seagull] is translated by two women [Sara Tropper and Esther Frumkin] who live in Israel. They live in Israel, and yes, Seagull is from India. And the man who introduced me to Seagull is Ornan.

NG: How was the process of being translated? And seeing your work in another language?

RS: It’s okay, it’s okay. When I worked with Sara and Esther, they cooperated. We met a lot and talked about it and you know I felt the same rhythm in Hebrew as in the English. So, this was good for me.

NG: Ornan cites Hannah Herzig who placed you more in the Hebrew literary tradition than in the Israeli tradition, where do you see your work?

RS: Yes, I am not sure what she meant with this because I feel myself to be very Israeli, for good and for worse. For everything. It is very important for me what is going on here. I am not aloof. I am not out of everything. It is part of my life, my sorrow, my regret. Everything is connected with this place, this nation, destiny. Everything, everything, everything. So, I don’t know what she meant by that but at the same time I can understand her because my origins are in Eastern Europe. I have a special attitude, special feelings for these origins. For me, it is something good, something that has its charms, something you can be nostalgic about in a way. It is all very complicated.

NG: Do you see your literary influences then being more Eastern European? European more than Israeli?

RS: More European, especially Kafka. I don’t know how to divide Eastern Europe from Western Europe, Czechoslovakia. But in our messages, you mentioned Proust whose work is very alive in me. All these questions of time and memory; without it, without memory, without the past, there is no sense in literature and art. Without the attitudes of the past. So, I feel compelled to be with my face out. It is good for me. And as I said before, I am very much concerned with what’s going on here.

NG: Do you feel an obligation to respond to it directly? To comment on the day-to-day?

RS: I don’t like what’s happening here. It’s not my feeling. Everything is so difficult. It’s not coherent. What can we do? I feel too small. I cannot change these things.

NG: So as an artist, how do you deal with it? How do you try to interpret it or create something better?

RS: I don’t know. It depends, periods of life are changing. Sometimes you feel that when you speak to people, to other men and women. You know the legacy of Socrates? By talking, that’s all, going around the world and talking to others, maybe then you can change something — otherwise what can I do, I can’t do anything.

NG: Do you think your writing has been influential?

RS: I don’t know if it has influenced really.

NG: And more broadly, do you think literature has helped to inspire change?

RS: I don’t think so. Not at all. [ED: Upon further consideration, the author notes: “I think that there is such an influence (for example, ideas about human rights, feminism, etc). I do see the influence, how literature has dealt with these issues before the change has occurred in real life. However, changes take time.”]

NG: Then do you still feel compelled to write? Is it useless? Or is it just something personal?

RS: No, it is not useless because it is our way of being human. We cannot ignore it. It is part of us. You cannot ignore it or distract it. It is, the question is why there is something and not nothing. We are creatures, we are animals, and we know how to speak. We have language, that’s all.

NG: That is beautiful, thank you. Then in terms of advancements in technology with its different ways of writing, communicating, and interacting, how has that changed things for you?

RS: I think everything is becoming more ... you know, it’s like going from spot A to spot B, whether it will take 2 minutes or half a minute, it’s not very crucial. You know, I am not very good with all of this technology ... But all these problems are not the real problems. Not the main problems. The world is changing and it’s okay. I was in this world for so many years and it’s enough with what I have seen and everything. Do you know that I am writing poems?

NG: Is this your first time writing poetry?

RS: No, no, no, many, many years. But this last period of life is very fruitful in this way. I am writing a lot, from time to time, many poems. 

NG: Do you approach these poems differently from your short stories and novels?

RS: I write more poems and very short stories, now in prose, without rhyme, without the end of the line cooperating with the other lines, everything is like something broken.

NG: Did something specific spur the change to writing more poetry?

RS: Not because of something. It is a way of expressing my memories, my memories. My way of seeing the world, the nuances. Some sort of regret. It is hard to understand how to be. 

NG: Do you see the poems as a collection, connected as a whole?

RS: In a way yes. It is always the past, the childhood, the inner reflexive way of the negative, of seeing the negative. You know the negative way that is becoming more and more relevant here. More and more dominating here. People don’t want to see. You know something, it is like the language of Orwell. It is very popular here. Everything is so strict. How do I describe it?

NG: Destructive, is it like Freud’s death instinct?

RS: I am sorry, I don’t understand. 

NG: Sigmund Freud. The death instinct.

RS: Deaf, do you mean that you don’t hear?

NG: No, no, like to die. Death. 

RS: Ah, no, no, not this. It is ... you know what I mean. The main issue, the main problem of our country is the occupation and ironically it is not allowed to say the word “occupation.” It is not a popular word. So, if you don’t say “occupation,” there is no occupation. Something like this. So, it is hard. It’s not simple. It is a conflict and I don’t want to make an idealization of all the Palestinians and demonizations of all the Israelis and Jews — it’s not like this, of course. But the way is long and difficult, and very much calling for a change. You understand? It is very painful. But I am not one-sided in an extreme way. I see the conflict. There is a conflict, but (there is always the but) I am not satisfied with the situation. I hope things will change. Maybe I will not see it. I am sure the change will come. But in my age, I don’t think I will see it. But I have two children. My daughter lives in Tel Aviv and my son lives in Los Angeles. It is their life and they will have to handle it.

NG: Do you see your work contributing something to that future?

RS: I don’t know, sometimes I think maybe, maybe yes, because in order to enjoy my work you have to have some time of leisure, a peaceful mind. Here, I don’t know. It will come one day, but not now.

NG: Are there other artists, whether writers, painters, graffiti artists, who are helping to shape a change? A different future?

RS: In Israel?

NG: Yes, in Israel, also those who have left Israel, or are in Palestine.

RS: Yes, for example, the late Amos Oz and Yehoshua. Of course, there are many of them, many young people also. But less and less important, you know, it is like people stopped reading, and if they read, they read very low, not good literature. But I am not in this atmosphere.

NG: And do you still read regularly? 

RS: If I read? I read all the time! All day long, I read.

NG: Do you read contemporary literature? What do you read?

RS: No, not very much. You know, I read again and again the works of Kafka. Peter Nàdas, I like. He is from Hungary. Do you know the name?

NG: Yes, I think he is published by New Directions in the US. [ED: Peter Nàdas’s works translated by Imre Goldstein were published by Penguin and FSG.]

RS: And I like Roberto Bolaño, and so many others without end! From time to time, you find a good book. It is rare that I can say “I like it.” For example, it was very nice to read “A Terrible Country,” Keith Gessen, do you know it?

NG: I have not read it, but I’ve heard of it.

RS: It’s a very nice book. Also, all of the stories of Raymond Carver, the poems of Carver. And, of course, the Russian classics, like Chekhov, Gogol, and Tolstoy. They are the best. Dostoevsky, of course. This is the world that make it possible for me to live, to live in it, otherwise I couldn’t continue. It’s not so simple. I am sorry if I am so pessimistic. Maybe I am not so pessimistic. But this is the way it is. I am sorry for my English, I cannot express myself the way I would like.