David Shahar


David Shahar was an Israeli fiction writer, translator, and editor best known for his depiction of old Jerusalem in the multi-volume historical saga The Palace of Shattered Vessels.

Life and work

He was born in Jerusalem in June 1926, to a pious ultra-orthodox Jewish family that had lived in the city for several generations. His ancestors arrived in Jerusalem in the 19th century, from Hungary on his father's side and the Russian Empire on his mother's side. According to family stories, his father's side was descended from Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.
Shahar studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was involved with the Irgun Tzvai Leumi and the Canaanite movement, and identified as an Orthodox Jewish, ultranationalist, right-wing writer.
Shahar's series of novels The Palace of Shattered Vessels is recognized by many as his masterpiece, considered a realist depiction of life in pre-State Jerusalem. Regarded as an Israeli version of Proust by French and some Israeli critics, he won the Prix Medicis Etranger and the title of Commander in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He also won Israeli literary awards such as the Bialik Prize, the Agnon Prize and the Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works.
He had two children with the medieval historian Shulamith Shahar, one of them was the Israelian sinologist, Meir Shahar. He died in Paris in 1997. Poet and chemist Avner Treinin spoke at his funeral when Shahar was buried on the Mount of Olives.

Works

Short story collections

  • Concerning Dreams
  • Caesar
  • The Fortune Teller
  • The Death of the Little God
  • The Popeʹs Moustache

Novels

Translations into Hebrew

Books in English translation

  • News from Jerusalem: Stories, trans. Dalya Bilu, et al.
  • The Palace of Shattered Vessels, trans. Dalya Bilu
  • His Majesty's Agent, trans. Dalya Bilu
  • The Palace of Shattered Vessels: Summer in the Street of the Prophets; and, A Voyage to Ur of the Chaldees, trans. Dalya Bilu