Haim Gouri

Haim Gouri (; Gurfinkel; 9 October 1923 – 31 January 2018) was an Israeli poet, novelist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded the Israel Prize for poetry in 1988 and was the recipient of several other prizes of national distinction.

Career

Haim Gurfinkel (later Gouri) was born in Tel Aviv to Gila and the politician Yisrael. After studying at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School, he joined the Palmach and completed a commander's course. He participated in the bombing of a British radar station being used to track Aliyah Bet ships carrying illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine. In 1947 he was sent to Hungary to bring Holocaust survivor to Mandate Palestine. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he was a deputy company commander in the Palmach's Negev Brigade.

Gouri studied literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Sorbonne in Paris. As a journalist he worked for LaMerhav and later, Davar. He achieved fame with his coverage of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann. Gouri also wrote a few famous popular songs such as "The Comradeship" that became representative of Israel's war for independence.

Awards and recognition

In 1961, Gouri obtained the Sokolow Award for Israeli Journalism. The film The 81st Blow, which he wrote, co-produced, and co-directed, was nominated for the 1974 Academy Award for Documentary Feature. It is part of a powerful Holocaust trilogy that includes The Last Sea and Flames in the Ashes. In 1975, Gouri was awarded the Bialik Prize for literature. In 1988, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for Hebrew poetry. In 1998, he won the Uri Zvi Grinberg award.

Personal life Gouri lived with his wife, Aliza, in Jerusalem. Gouri died on 31 January 2018, at the age of 94.

Published works

Poetry Flowers of Fire , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1949) Till Dawn , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1950) Poems of the Seal , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1954) Compass Rose , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1960) Gehazi Visions , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1967) Movement to Touch , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1968) The Eagle Line , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1975) Summer's End , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1985) The One Who Came After Me , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1993) Words in My Love-Sick Blood (selected poems in English translation). Detroit: Wayne State University, 1996. The Poems , in two volumes, Bialik Institute (1998) Late Poems , Hakibbutz Hameuchad, (2002) I Am a Civil War , Daniella De-Nur, Hakibbutz Hameuchad, (2004). Eyval , Hakibbutz Hameuchad, (2009) Though I Wished for More of More , Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Daniella De-Nur, (2015)

Fiction The Chocolate Deal , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1965). English translations: New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. The Crazy Book . Am Oved Publishers, (1971) The Interrogation, The Story of Reuel . Am Oved Publishers, (1980) Who Knows Joseph G? , Hakibbutz Hameuchad (1980)

Non-fiction Pages of Jerusalem Hakibbutz Hameuchad, notes (1968) Facing the Glass Booth: the Jerusalem Trial of Adolf Eichmann (1962). English translation: Detroit: Wayne State University, 2004. The Imprint of Memory , Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Bialik Institute, (2015).

Documentary films The 81st Blow (Ha-Makah Hashmonim V'Echad, 1974), distributed with English subtitles by "American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims" The Last Sea (Ha-Yam Ha'Aharon, 1980) Flames in the Ashes (Pnei Hamered, 1985)