October 14, 1996

Leading Israeli poet to speak at UCSC on October 17

Yehuda Amichai, one of Israel's foremost contemporary writers, will present a reading on campus during an October speaking tour of Northern California.

Best known abroad for his poetry (he has been translated into more than 20 languages), Amichai has also published a novel, short stories, and several plays. His most recent book, released in September by University of California Press, is The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai.

Amichai was born in Wurzburg, Germany, in 1924 and emigrated with his parents to Jerusalem in the mid-1930s. He served with the British Army's Jewish Brigade during World War II and with the elite Palmach unit in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. He has taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well as in Israeli elementary and high schools. He has served as a guest lecturer and visiting professor at colleges and universities around the world, including UC Berkeley and Yale. Amichai is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a recipient of the prestigious Israel Prize.

The local reading takes place at 7 p.m. on Thursday, October 17, in the Kresge College Seminar Room and is open to the public. Admission is $5. The talk is sponsored by the Santa Cruz Hillel Foundation, Kresge College, and the Board of Studies in Literature. For more information, call (408) 426-3332.

Amichai's home page can be found at http://www.israel.org/facts/culture/lit/amichai.html

--Barbara McKenna