Haim Gouri (born 9 October 1923) is an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i poet, novelist, journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, and documentary

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 filmmaker.

Biography

Haim Gouri was born in Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

. After studying at the Kadoorie Agricultural High School, he joined the Palmach

Palmach

The Palmach was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the underground army of the Yishuv during the period of the British Mandate of Palestine. The Palmach was established on May 15, 1941...

 militia. In 1947 he was sent to Hungary to assist Holocaust survivors to come to Palestine. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War he was a deputy company commander in the Palmach's Negev Brigade

Negev Brigade

The 12th Negev Brigade was an Israeli infantry brigade that served in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It was commanded by Nahum "Sergei" Sarig and consisted of four Palmach battalions...

.

Gouri studied literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

 and the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 in Paris. As a journalist he worked for Lamerhav

LaMerhav

LaMerhav was a Hebrew language newspaper published in Israel between 1954 and 1971. It was owned by the Ahdut HaAvoda party and later HaKibbutz HaMeuhad, and was edited by Yisrael Even-Nur, Moshe Carmel and David Padhatzor, though most of its articles were written by Yisrael Galili.The paper's...

and later, Davar

Davar

Davar was a Hebrew-language daily newspaper published in the Mandate Palestine and Israel between 1925 and May 1996.-History:Davar was established by Moshe Beilinson and Berl Katznelson, with Katznelson as its first editor. The first edition was published on 1 June 1925 under the name Davar - Iton...

. He achieved fame with his coverage of the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Eichmann

Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...

.

Gouri lives with his wife, Aliza, in Jerusalem.

Literary career

Gouri's first published poem, Sea Voyage, appeared in Mishmar, edited by Abraham Shlonsky, in 1945. His first complete volume of poetry, Flowers of Fire, was published in 1949, after the Israeli War of Independence.

Awards and honors

• The film The 81st Blow
  The 81st Blow
  The 81st Blow is a 1974 Israeli documentary film directed by Haim Gouri. The film covers the oppression of Jews under the Nazis and features rare historical footage of concentration camps. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The title is derived from a comment by a...
  
  , which he wrote, co-produced, and co-directed, was nominated for the 1974 Academy Award for Documentary Feature
  Academy Award for Documentary Feature
  The Academy Award for Documentary Feature is among the most prestigious awards for documentary films.- Winners and nominees:Following the Academy's practice, films are listed below by the award year...
  
  . It is part of a powerful Holocaust trilogy that includes The Last Sea and Flames in the Ashes.
• In 1975, Gouri was awarded the Bialik Prize
  Bialik Prize
  The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...
  
   for literature
  Hebrew literature
  Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews...
  
  .
• In 1988, he was awarded the Israel Prize
  Israel Prize
  The Israel Prize is an award handed out by the State of Israel and is largely regarded as the state's highest honor. It is presented annually, on Israeli Independence Day, in a state ceremony in Jerusalem, in the presence of the President, the Prime Minister, the Knesset chairperson, and the...
  
  , for Hebrew poetry.
• In 1998, he won the Uri Zvi Grinberg award.

In 2005, he was voted the 147th-greatest Israeli of all time, in a poll by the Israeli news website Ynet

Ynet

Ynet is the most popular Israeli news and general content website. It is owned by the same conglomerate that operates Yediot Ahronot, the country's secondleading daily newspaper...

to determine whom the general public considered the 200 Greatest Israelis.

Poetry

• Flowers of Fire, Years of Fire (1949)
• Poems of the Seal (1954)
• Compass Rose (1960)
• Movement to Touch (1968)
• Gehazi Visions (1974)
• The Eagle Line (1975)
• Words in My Love-Sick Blood (selected poems in English translation). Detroit: Wayne State University, 1996, ISBN 0814325947.
• The Poems, in two volumes (1998)

Fiction

• The Chocolate Deal (1965). English translations: New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1968, ISBN 112515196X. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999, ISBN 0814328008.
• The Crazy Book (1971)
• The Interrogation, The Story of Reuel (1980)

Non-fiction

• Facing the Glass Booth: the Jerusalem Trial of Adolf Eichmann (1962). English translation: Detroit: Wayne State University, 2004, ISBN 0814330878.
• Pages of Jerusalem, notes (1968)

Documentary films

• The 81st Blow
  The 81st Blow
  The 81st Blow is a 1974 Israeli documentary film directed by Haim Gouri. The film covers the oppression of Jews under the Nazis and features rare historical footage of concentration camps. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature. The title is derived from a comment by a...
  
  (Ha-Makah Hashmonim V'Echad, 1974), distributed with English subtitles by "American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims"
• The Last Sea (Ha-Yam Ha'Aharon, 1980)
• Flames in the Ashes (Pnei Hamered, 1985)

See also

• List of Israel Prize recipients
• List of Bialik Prize recipients
  Bialik Prize
  The Bialik Prize is an annual literary award given by the municipality of Tel Aviv, Israel for significant accomplishments in Hebrew literature. The prize is named in memory of Hayyim Nahman Bialik. There are two separate prizes, one specifically for "Literature", which is in the field of fiction,...
  
  

External links

• "Haim Gouri" (capsule biography and bibliography) at the Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature.
• "Haim Gouri" in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).