Preview Mode Links will not work in preview mode
THE BIBLIO FILE is a leading podcast that examines "the book" and book culture. Hosted by NIGEL BEALE it features wide ranging conversations with writers, poets, book publishers, booksellers, book editors, book collectors, book makers, book scholars, book critics, book designers, book publicists, literary agents and other best practitioners who busy themselves with the world of books.

Feedback or suggestions? Please email notabenebeale@gmail.com 

Jun 24, 2009

Meir Shalev one of Israel’s most celebrated novelists, was born in 1948 in Nahalal, Israel’s first moshav. He is a bestselling author in Israel, Holland, and Germany; and he has been translated into more than twenty languages. His novels include A Pigeon and a Boy, Fontanelle, Alone In the Desert, But A Few Days, and Esau. Russian Romance (The Blue Mountain) is one of the top five bestsellers in Israeli publishing history. Shalev is often compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Prizes he has won include the Juliet Club Prize (Italy); The Chiavari (Italy); and The Brenner Prize of 2006—the highest Israeli literary recognition awarded for his novel, A Pigeon and a Boy, published in the US by Random House in 2007.

I met Meir at The Blue Met Writers Festival in Montreal. We talk here about, among other things, television, satire, The Daily Show, great sentences, labels, Gogol, gardening and farming.