Alona Kimhi ( he, אלונה קמחי; born 1963) is an Israeli award-winning author and former actress.

Biography

Alona Kimhi was born in

Lviv Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

(then in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

), in 1966 and

emigrated Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

to Israel with her family in 1972. Following her army service, in a

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

in the

Negev The Negev or Negeb (; he, הַנֶּגֶב, hanNegév; ar, ٱلنَّقَب, an-Naqab) is a desert and semidesert region of southern Israel. The region's largest city and administrative capital is Beersheba (pop. ), in the north. At its southe ...

Desert, she moved to Tel-Aviv and studied acting at the

Beit Zvi Beit Zvi School for the Performing Arts, and a Theater ( he, בית צבי) is an acting school, and a theater located in the Tel Aviv District city of Ramat Gan, Israel, established in 1950. History Beit Zvi is the country's first theater school ...

Academy of Dramatic Arts, where she graduated with honours and began her career as a Film and Theatre actress. Alona starred in several Israeli and international films, including “Himmo, King of Jerusalem”, “Abba Ganuv”, and "Tobe Hooper’s Night Terrors", as well as playing leading roles in plays by Shakespeare, Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. In the late 1980s, Kimhi started writing lyrics to songs by her spouse, Israeli musician

Izhar Ashdot Izhar Ashdot ( he, יזהר אשדות; born 23 November 1958) is an Israeli singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He is a co-founding member of the Israeli rock band T-Slam. Early life When he was eleven, Ashdot started to play th ...

, writing articles for major magazines and began writing short stories. Her first collection of short stories won the 1994 anonymous ACUM literary contest and the resulting book I Anastasia was published a year later to critical acclaim and became a national bestseller, winning the Israeli Copyright Society prestigious Book of the Year Award. By the late 1990s, Kimhi became a full-time writer. Her second book and first novel
Weeping Susannah
published in 1998, turned her into a major voice of her generation and started her international career. Weeping Susannah won the 1999 Bernstein Award for Best Novel and the French WIZO award. It has since been translated into 16 languages, and published in major international publishing houses, such as Gallimard in France where she is a well-known author. In 2009, her novel ''Weeping Susanna'' was dramatized as a

miniseries A miniseries or mini-series is a television series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. "Limited series" is another more recent US term which is sometimes used interchangeably. , the popularity of miniseries format h ...

for the Israeli cable TV channel

Hot 3 Hot 3 (styled as HOT3; he, הוט 3; also available in HD as HOT3 HD) is an Israeli television channel of the cable television company 'HOT'. First introduced as The Family Channel in the early 1990s and later simply as Channel 3, it was one of ...

. Alona Kimhi lives in Tel Aviv with her spouse

and their son Ilai, writing novels, plays and screenplays for Film and TV.

Awards

* In 1996, Kimhi was awarded the ACUM Book of the Year Prize for ''I, Anastasia''. * In 1999, she was the joint recipient of the

Bernstein Prize The Bernstein Prize is an annual Israeli literary award for writers 50 years of age and younger. The prize is awarded by the Bernstein Foundation, named after Mordechai Bernstein, who left money in his estate to establish a foundation in order to ...

(original Hebrew novel category), for her first novel, ''Weeping Susannah''. The other prize recipient was Yocheved Reisman. * In 2001, she received the French

WIZO The Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO; he, ויצו ') is a volunteer organization dedicated to social welfare in all sectors of Israeli society, the advancement of the status of women, and Jewish education in Israel and the Diasp ...

Prize. * In 2001, she was awarded the Prime Minister's Prize.

Published works

Books published in Hebrew

* '
I, Anastasia
'' (stories), Keter, 1996 ni, Anastasia* '

'' (novel), Keter, 1999 usannah Ha-Bochiah* '
Lily La Tigresse
'' (novel), Keter, 2004 ily La Tigresse* Victor and Masha (novel), Keter, 2012

Children

* '
Superbabe and the Enchanted Circle
'' Jerusalem, Keter, 2001 ushlemet Ve Ha-Maagal Ha-Mechushaf

Books in translation

*I, Anastasia English: London/New York,

Toby Press Toby Press was an American comic-book company that published from 1949 to 1955. Founded by Elliott Caplin, brother of cartoonist Al Capp and himself an established comic strip writer, the company published reprints of Capp's ''Li'l Abner'' strip; ...

, 2000
German: in paperback: Berlin, Berlin Verlag, 2005
French: Paris, Gallimard, 2008 * Weeping Susannah Dutch: Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 2001
French
Paris, Gallimard, 2001; in paperback: Gallimard/Folio, 2003

English: London, Harvill, 2001; New York, Harvill/Farrar Straus, 2002,
Italian: Milan, Rizzoli, 2001
Swedish: Stockholm, Wahlstrom/Widstrand, 2001
Portuguese: Lisbon, Asa, 2002
Finnish: Helsinki, Tammi, 2003
Greek: Athens, Psichogios, 2002
German

Spanish: Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2004
Polish: Warsaw, WAB, 2006
Chinese: Hefei, Anhui Literature & Art Pubs, 2008
Turkish: Istanbul, Aclik Defter, 2011
Czech: Prague, Garamond Press, 2014 * Lily La Tigresse English
USA, Dalkey Archive Press, 2014

German

French
Paris, Gallimard, 2006; in paperback: Folio, 2007

Portuguese
Porto, Asa, 2009

Italian

* Victor and Masha French: Paris, Gallimard, 2012 * Lunar Eclipse English: Translator Yael Lotan, Toby Press, 2001

References

Sources

Alona Kimhi
at th
Institute of the Translation of Hebrew Literature
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimhi, Alona 1966 births Living people Beit Zvi School for the Performing Arts alumni Israeli children's writers Israeli women children's writers 20th-century Israeli women writers 21st-century Israeli women writers Israeli novelists Israeli stage actresses Israeli film actresses Ukrainian Jews Ukrainian emigrants to Israel Israeli people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Hebrew-language writers Bernstein Prize recipients Recipients of Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works