Yehuda Amichai, the prominent, internationally known Israeli poet, was on campus in Fall 1998 as the first Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence. Mr. Amichai’s poetry has been translated into over thirty languages, most recently Czech and Albanian, and he is the author of many collections of poetry, including Now and in Other Days (1955), Two Hopes Away (1958), In the Park (1960), Collected Poems (1963), Poems (1969), Songs of Jerusalem and Myself (1973), Amen (1977), Time (1979), Love Poems (1981), Even a Fist Was Once an Open Palm with Fingers (1991), and Yehuda Amichai: A Life of Poetry, 1948-1994 (1994). His most recent collection, Open Closed Open, appeared in this country in the year 2000. His play A Journey to Nineveh was produced by the Habimah National Theatre in Tel Aviv in 1964. He is also the author of a novel, Not of This Time, Not of This Place (1964), and a collection of short stories, The World Is a Room (1985). An honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Mr. Amichai has been the recipient of numerous international honors.
Born in 1924 in Wurzburg, Germany, Mr. Amichai immigrated with his parents to Palestine in 1936. He served in the British Army in World War II and afterward in the Haganah underground. He also saw active service in the Israeli War of Independence and the Sinai Campaign. He lives in Jerusalem.
On grownups, He won't take pity anymore.
Now and in other days.