Ronit Matalon

Ronit Matalon (Hebrew: רונית מטלון, born 1959) is an Israeli fiction writer.

About

Matalon was born in Ganei Tikva, Israel, the daughter of Egyptian-Jewish immigrants. Matalon studied literature and philosophy at Tel Aviv University and worked as a journalist for Haaretz newspaper, where she covered Gaza and the West Bank between 1987 and 1993.^[1] She is a resident of Tel Aviv and teaches literature at the University of Haifa.^[2] She also taught at the Camera Obscura school for the arts in Tel Aviv.

Matalon is an important feminist-oriental voice in contemporary Hebrew literature, and has published essays on the desire to portray alternative eastern-western characterizations, to the categorizations in existing Israeli literature.

Matalon is also a liberal social activist, and has participated in demonstrations organized by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. She is a member of the Art and Culture Council of the Ministry of Education, and the Forum for Mediterranean Culture at the Van Leer Institute. In 2003, she was a co-petitioner to the Supreme Court of Israel to investigate the assassination of Salah Shehade.^[3]

Awards and honors

• 2009 - Matalon received the Bernstein Prize (original Hebrew novel category), for her novel "The Sound of Our Steps".^[4][5]
• 2010 - Matalon received the Neuman prize, a literary prize given by Bar-Ilan University.^[6]
• 2010 - Matalon received an honorary PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on June 6, 2010 for her contributions to literature and for her social activism.^[7][8]

Novels

An illustration by Ruth Zarfati for the book A Story that Begins with a Snake's Funeral

• Strangers at Home (1992)
• A Story that Begins with a Snake's Funeral (1994, children's book)
• The One Facing Us (1995)
• Sarah Sarah (2000)
• Reading and Writing (2001)
• Bliss (2003) ^[9]
• Uncover Her Face (2005)
• The Sound of Our Steps (2008)^[10]

Articles

• "Weddings and Anti-Weddings", Haaretz, 2008^[11]

References

1. Myers, Linda (February 19, 2004). "Israeli novelist Ronit Matalon speaks Feb. 23 on writing, Middle East". Cornell Chronicle.
2. "Ronit Matalon". The Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.
3. Galili, Lily (Sep 29, 2003). "Writers demand probe into civilian deaths during Gaza strike". Haaretz.com.
4. Matalon and Stav win Bernstein Prize The Jerusalem Post, 16 July 2009
5. Forget Sapir. Give her the Bernstein Haaretz, 16 July 2009
6. Yudelevitch, Meirav (March 14, 2010). "Neuman Prize for Literature to Ronit Matalon" (in Hebrew). Ynet.
7. "Hebrew U. honorary doctorate recipients include Dorit Beinisch, Dr. Marcos Aguinis, Evgeny Kissin". The dept. of Media Relations, Hebrew University.
8. Yudelevitch, Merav (May 24, 2010). "Honorary PhD to Ronit Matalon" (in Hebrew). Ynet.
9. Matalon, Ronit. "Bliss: A Novel". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2011-12-04.
10. Laor, Yitzhak (May 2, 2008). "A beautiful bildungsroman". Haaretz.com. and Balint, Benjamin (August 13, 2015). "A Drama of Dislocation". Haaretz.com.
11. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1025432.html