Aharon Appelfeld

Aharon Appelfeld, Aharon also spelled
Aron (b. Feb. 16, 1932, Cernăuţi,
Romania [now Chernivtsi, Ukraine]),
novelist and short-story writer who is
best known for his Hebrew-language
allegorical novels of the Holocaust.
At the
age of eight Appelfeld and his parents
were captured by Nazi troops. His mother
was killed, and Aharon and his father
were sent to a labour camp. Appelfeld
eventually escaped and for two years
roamed rural Ukraine. In 1944 he worked
in the field kitchens of the Soviet
army. He immigrated to Palestine in 1947
and served two years in the Israeli
army, during which time he resumed his
formal education, which had ended after
the first grade. He later studied
philosophy at Hebrew University and
taught Hebrew literature at Israeli
universities. Although Appelfeld’s works
in English translation deal primarily
with the Holocaust, his writings cover a
wider range of subject matter.
Appelfeld’s fiction includes Bagai ha-poreh
(1963; In the Wilderness), Badenheim, ʿir
nofesh (1979; Badenheim 1939), Ha-Ketonet
veha-pasim (1983; Tzili: The Story of a
Life), Bartfus ben ha-almavet (1988; The
Immortal Bartfuss), Katerinah (1989;
Katerina), Mesilat barzel (1991; “The
Railway”), and Unto the Soul (1994).
Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a
Conversation with Philip Roth was
published in 1994.