Country: Israel

WITHOUT A EULOGY (translated from the Hebrew by Alan Sacks) What he wanted was to hide among the simple or among the small whose greatness he had always craved. To be at rest with friends cloaked in the pride of the meek without words, and without even a eulogy. And after that, only this: To lie below tender shoots sheltered in the shade of thorns and to hear nothing but Blackbirds singing. Copyright © Elisha Porat 2000 Elisha Porat/Bio. Elisha Porat, the 1996 winner of Israel's Prime Minister's Prize for Literature, has published 17 volumes of fiction and poetry, in Hebrew, since 1973. His works have appeared in translation in Israel, the United States, Canada and England. The English translation of his short story collection "The Messiah of LaGuardia", was released in 1997. His latest work, a book of Hebrew poetry, "The Dinosaurs of the Language", was recently published in Israel. Elisha Porat was born in 1938 to a "pioneer" family in Palestine-Eretz Yisrael (pre Israel) his parents were among the founders of Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, a Kibbutz on the Sharon plain near the city of Hadera. Today Porat, devoted to the community ideal, still make his home near the original tent erected by his parents back in the early '30s. In 1956 Porat was drafted into the IDF (the Israeli Defence Forces) and fought in three wars: the Six Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and the War of south Lebanon in 1982. As a lifelong member of his Kibbutz, Porat has worked many years as a farmer as well as a writer. His labors in the Kibbutz fruit orchard, perhaps contrasting with his military tours of duty, have always influenced his art. Besides writing, his current endeavors include editorial duties for several literary journals. He is married with four grown children - three daughters and a son. In 1998, Porat journied out into the internet, and his growing volume of work can be readily found in many literary Ezines. His translated stories and poems have for years found their way into print, most recently The Boston review.

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