SHMUEL-YOYSEF AGNON

SHMUEL-YOYSEF AGNON (July 17, 1888-February 17, 1970)

            He was born in Buczacz, Galicia.  Was a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature.  In his youth he also wrote in Yiddish: a poem in Yudishes vokhenblat (Jewish weekly newspaper) in Stanislav (July 17, 1903), a story in Der yudisher veker (The Jewish alarm) in Buczacz (August 12, 1906), as well as in Dos yudishe togblat (The Jewish daily newspaper) in Lemberg and G. Bader’s Der yudisher folkskalender (The Jewish people’s calendar) in Lemberg.  A longer story by Agnon from this period in his life was Der toyten-tants (The dance of death).  In 1907 he made aliya to the land of Israel and wrote nothing further in Yiddish.  In book form: Yidish verk (Yiddish works) (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1977), 56 pp. + 152 pp.  Translated from Hebrew: Shriftn, in dray teyln (Writings, in three parts), trans. Eliezer Rubinshteyn (Tel Aviv: Hamenorah, 1969), 605 pp.; Tsvishn alt un nay, oysderveylte dertseylungen (Between old and new, selected stories), trans. Ḥaim Gurt (Tel Aviv: Yisroel-bukh, 1978), 246 pp.  He died in Reḥovot.

Source: Getzel Kressel, Leksikon hasifrut haivrit (Handbook of Hebrew literature) (Merḥavya, 1967), vol. 2.

Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers (Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 413.