Eilat Negev

Residence : Jerusalem, Israel

Biographical information

Eilat Negev is a journalist and author, who was born in Saratoga Springs, NY to Israeli parents. She grew up in Israel, where she studied English Literature and History of Art at Hebrew University; she also earned dual Masters degrees in Translation and in Mass Communications.

During her career as a journalist, Negev has hosted her own Israeli radio program, profiling celebrated artists, writers and musicians; she's served as a documentary radio producer for Israeli Radio; and, for the past 12 years, she's acted as the senior literary correspondent for Yedioth Achronot, the major Israeli daily newspaper. Frequently traveling abroad on assignment, Negev has interviewed Salman Rushdie in exile, Toni Morrison, Arthur Miller, Nobel Laureate Nadine Gordimer, Paul Auster, Iris Murdoch, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Erica Jong, Shere Hite and many others.

Eilat Negev has published two books in Hebrew--Intimate Conversations (1995) and Private Life (2001)-both collections of her interviews with authors. A third collection, entitled Close Encounters, was recently published in the USA and the UK. In January 2003, the German publisher Econ-Ullstein-List published her collaboration with her partner, Yehuda Koren, In Our Hearts We Were Giants, a non-fiction title about Dr. Mengele and a Jewish family of seven dwarfs.

Negev has two children. She lives in Jerusalem and is currently working on the biography of Assia Wevill, Ted Hughes's lover.

Discussion topics

• The Seven Dwarves of Auschwitz--Not simply another Holocaust account but an extraordinary survival tale of how the weakest of the weak--seven siblings, each only 90 cm tall--overcame all odds. Based on Eilat Negev's book In Our Hearts We Were Giants, The Seven Dwarves of Auschwitz tells the story of a group of highly successful performers, who had their own traveling theatre, endured Auschwitz, and succeeded in rescuing 13 other people from the concentration camp.
• Don't Mix my Underwear with that of my Protagonist-Explores the relationship between the work and the life of the artist (based on Negev's book Close Encounters and her experiences with 20 Israeli writers). This lecture on Israeli literature and the intimate life of its prominent authors is a new and fresh angle on turbulent Israeli life. Negev helps to unfold the panoramic Israeli experience of the past 55 years.

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