SUZANNE BELLING
Acclaimed by renowned writers such as Amos Oz and Roddy Doyle, Nevo told the love story of “Neuland” at his South African book launch at the Rabbi Cyril Harris Community Centre on Tuesday evening.
The book was inspired by his grandmother Pracha Frishberg, who escaped Poland on the last boat to reach Palestine two days before the Second World War broke out.
Nevo’s characters in the narrative are Inbar, her grandmother Lily and Dori, who left his wife and young son at home in Israel to search for his missing father in South America.
The author is the grandson – although he never met him – of the late Levi Eshkol, who was prime minister of Israel during the 1967 Six Day War and who died in 1969, two years before Nevo was born. The family name was originally Shkolnik-Frishberg, but, at the behest of his grandmother, Nevo’s name was Hebraised, as his mother had died and the Eshkol name became a memorial to his grandfather.
In Johannesburg Nevo spoke in advance of his appearance at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, both at the RCHCC and at University of the Witwatersrand, which, surprisingly, remained non-political, “although the number of security guards equalled the numbers of the audience”, Nevo said.
Born in Jerusalem in 1971, he studied copywriting at the Tirza Granot School and psychology at Tel Aviv University. Today he owns and co-manages the largest private creative writing school in Israel; he is considered the mentor of many young Israeli writers.
His lessons are in Hebrew, apart from “crash courses in England and all over the world”, he said.
“I never thought of writing as a profession but, while in advertising, I felt the urge to write something that was not commercial. I started with short stories – in a sort of creative underground.”
In spite of having a wife – Anat – to support, now he also has three daughters. “I found myself with a manuscript and a publisher, quit my job and went into writing fulltime.”
Nevo’s works are written in Hebrew and have been translated into English, Italian, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Polish and Turkish.
His own command of English is excellent, having spent part of his childhood in Detroit in the US.
He symbolises the wandering Jews he writes about and straight from South Africa, goes on to Montreal, Milan and Venice.
Speaking about his grandfather, he says that people in Israel accept that he had a prime minister as grandfather without a barrage of questions, but in other countries the idea aroused more curiosity.
Nevo’s 2004 novel “Homesick” was a bestseller and won the Reimond Vallier Prize in France in 2008. It was also short-listed for the Sapir Prize in Israel in 2005 and long-listed for the Independent Prize in the UK in 2009.
“World Cup Wishes”, published in 2007, was awarded the Golden Book Prize in Israel and the Adel-Wizo Prize in Italy.
“Neuland” (2011) is his latest book to appear in English and, apart from selling over 130 000 copies in Israel, won the Steimatzky Book of the Year prize.
“The Lost Solos” (2013) won his second Golden Book Prize in Israel.
A new book is entitled “The Last Mikveh in Siberia” – not in Russia, as one might be given to think, but a story about the Russian neighbourhood in Safed, where the mayor wanted a mikveh that had been donated, but the Russians had their own ideas in this humorous and erotic story.
“There is a lot to write about in Israel – open the window and the conflicts come in,” Nevo remarks.
He and his family live in Ra’anana, where he is quick to point out, a lot of former South Africans live.
