Shmuel Yosef Agnon was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet and short story writer, born in 1887 in Buczacz, Galicia and died in 1970, who became a central figure in modern Hebrew literature. He immigrated to Ottoman Palestine as a young man and later settled permanently in Jerusalem, writing fiction that explores the tension between traditional Jewish life and the modern world, often elegizing the fading Eastern European Jewish communities he had grown up among, in a distinctive style blending modern and rabbinic Hebrew. In 1966 he shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with the poet Nelly Sachs, recognized for what the citation called his profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from the life of the Jewish people.
Facts
AwardNobel Prize in Literature, 1966, shared with Nelly Sachs. 1 Classification
Original Language FAQs
Which of Shmuel Yosef Agnon's books is considered his greatest work?
Only Yesterday (Temol Shilshom) of 1945 is the work considered his greatest.
The Nobel Foundation's biographical note on Agnon names Temol Shilshom (Only Yesterday), published in 1945, as the work considered his greatest. It describes the book as an epic portrayal of the early pioneer immigrants to Palestine. The same note points to an earlier first major publication, Hakhnasat Kalah (The Bridal Canopy), which re-creates the golden age of Hassidism, and to A Guest for the Night, which depicts the ruin of Galicia after the First World War.
What languages shaped Shmuel Yosef Agnon's childhood?
Yiddish at home and Hebrew in formal study until age nine.
The Nobel Foundation's biographical note says Agnon grew up in a mixed cultural atmosphere. Yiddish was the language of the home, while Hebrew was the language of the Bible and the Talmud, which he studied formally until the age of nine. He also gained a knowledge of German literature from his mother and of the teachings of Maimonides and of the Hassidim from his father.
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Poetry, Genres Source Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Wikipedia)
Source Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Wikipedia)
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Sources
1. Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia)Wikipedia lead sentence, opening parenthetical birth-death dates
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון \ שְׁמוּאֵל יוֹסֵף עַגְנוֹן shmuél yoséf agnón; August 8, 1887, February 17, 1970) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer.
Wikipedia lead section, third paragraph, Nobel Prize sentence
In 1966, he shared the Nobel Prize in Literature with the poet Nelly Sachs.
lead paragraph
He was one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature
In Genre: Poetry, Lead section
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון \ שְׁמוּאֵל יוֹסֵף עַגְנוֹן shmuél yoséf agnón; August 8, 1887, February 17, 1970) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer.
In Genre: The Novel, Lead section
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון \ שְׁמוּאֵל יוֹסֵף עַגְנוֹן shmuél yoséf agnón; August 8, 1887, February 17, 1970) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer.
In Genre: Short Fiction, Lead section
Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Hebrew: שמואל יוסף עגנון \ שְׁמוּאֵל יוֹסֵף עַגְנוֹן shmuél yoséf agnón; August 8, 1887, February 17, 1970) was an Austro-Hungarian-born Israeli novelist, poet, and short-story writer.
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