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"Write more stories. You have fresh, vital talent, a proper style and an original way of
seeing things." A.B. Yehoshua
"She has a sparing but highly sensuous language, not lofty, credible, but unfamiliar. People
don't write this way here." Ariana Melamed
May I differ/ The Blog
by: Corinna
Cartoons: Yonatan Amitay
HudnaPress 2008
Number of pages in the Hebrew original: 412
Price: 86 NIS
The first blog-book ever to be published in Israel has now appeared, launching a new
literary genre locally and internationally: the literary opinion-blog, a personal online venue
on social and political reality and the literary world. Its language is multifarious, replete
with references to culture through expressions of satire, humor, allegory and aphorisms.
May I Differ is the seventh book by Corinna Hasofferett, one of the pioneers of the
opinion-blog. While this field was still new, Corinna – at the age of sixty-six – launched
her own first blog, a multi-lingual blog on the American 'Blogger' site. Subsequently, in
June 2003, she opened a Hebrew blog on the Israeli site 'Reshimot' under the triple title
'writer-publisher-iconoclast'. Beside her writing, she broadcasts her personal radio-blog
program on the ODEO website, and her own video-blog on YouTube.
May I Differ contains one-fourth of the six-hundred posts published on the writer's
personal blog at the Reshimot website, in nine chapters that relate to Israeli and universal
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reality, here and now, with a pungent, smiling statement. It even includes the revelation of
an amazing encounter with the present Israeli PM Olmert and donor Talansky at a dimly-lit
New York nightspot, back when the two were just getting started.
Besides the writer's own texts, the book brings surfers' reactions, creating a fascinating
discussion. Texts are accompanied by the original cartoons of the Israeli-Canadian artist
Yonatan Amitay.
Other books by Corinna:
Who's Seen Mickey – a book for toddlers published by Da'at, 1962.
Recommended by the Association of Kindergarten Teachers for the richness of its
Hebrew language; printed in dozens of editions, sold until lately.
Some Answers – prose. Selected and edited by Aharon Meged. Published by
Masada and The Hebrew Writers Association in Israel, 1973.
Pink Pages – prose. Selected and edited by Moshe Shamir, Zabam and the Hebrew
Writers Association in Israel, 1987.
A Minyan of Lovers – HudnaPress 2002. Written in the course of thirty years: a
novel in stories that unveil the richly complex and colorful facets of life of an
extraordinary woman in Israel. Events and hidden corners in the lives of men and
women whom she happens to meet on her way, or they on theirs.
The prism is that of the Jewish Anna, but the book ends with the journal of the
Arab Sewaar in the award-winning chapter Revelation.
Once She Was a Child/Intimate Landscapes – HudnaPress 2003 – literary and
documentary: written in the course of ten years, conversations with international
women-writers about breaking the myth of childhood as paradise are interlaced in
the pages of the narrator's journal.
Unknown Territory/A Polyphonic Novel - HudnaPress 2007: in a vocal mosaic
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of love stories this novel renders the first, formative years of the State of Israel. The
writer ventures on a literary journey, tracing the footsteps of two childhood friends
from her youth movement days who were killed in military retaliatory actions. A
panoramic view of the land is unfolded, whose secrets were shared by a select few
in closed in-groups, sworn to silence.
Awards and Grants
2007 – Havatzelet Fund grant for Unknown Territories/A Polyphonic Novel
2001-2007 Eshkol Fund grant – Creativity award
2002 Britain-Israel Arts Scholarship for lecturing at Oxford on
Once She Was A Child/Intimate Landscapes
2000 President's scholarship
1998 Artist's Residency at the Ledig Colony, Upstate New York, USA
1997 Artist's Residency at the Yaddo Colony, Upstate New York, USA
1994 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Academic
Center at Cairo Scholarships
1994 British Comparative Literature Professors' Award, England
1989 The Association for a Better Israel Award
1987 The Weiner and the New Israel Fund Award for the literature project at Hilai
1978 The Aricha Award for the novella Revelation.
1973/1989 Publishing awards by the Hebrew Writers' Association
1988/1995/1998/2001/2003/2007 Tel Aviv Culture Fund grants
Corinna's books have aroused much interest in academic circles and served as the
basis for seminar papers and research in Tel Aviv and Haifa universities.
1998, an international conference of professors of comparative literature at New York
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State, debate on literary aspects of the novella Revelation, translated into English.
2002 invited to lecture on Once She Was a Child/Intimate Landscapes at Women In
Eastern Literature academic conference at Oxford, England.
Critics' acclaim:
On A Minyan of Lovers
"The mysterious atmosphere, poetic rhythm and especially the phrase-structure
create a unique kind of tension and consolidate this novella into a narrative
wholeness." Professor Ruth Kartun-Bloom, Aricha Prize Chairperson
"Corinna writes from and for the body, with such physical and emotional
intensity that one nearly forgets she uses our everyday language." Gal Karniel,
‘Haaretz’ Literary Supplement
"The restraint, the irony, the spark that is aware of itself and well-hidden, all
these make the reading in Corinna's book a unique and direct encounter, as
befits worthy literature."
Yoram Melzer, Literature & Books, "Ma'ariv" 18.10.02
"I think you deserve even better than Melzer's review. Moshik and I read
Sodot aloud to each other and enjoyed it very much. There is a subtle
irony in your presentation of the story and we really appreciate the style
and content." Ilana Machover, London
"Corinna has a concise but sensual language, not elevated, credible
yet not familiar. People do not write like that here... Out of the trivia of
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a woman's life, stories unfold where it is difficult to differentiate between
the face of the soul and the events of the world."
Ariana Melamed, "Hadashot" Literature Section 1989
"In all the power contained in their clear and fine understatement, these books
have turned for me into compressed capsules of sadness, beauty and optimism.
Suddenly I realized that around the corner no simple, familiar resolution lies in
wait, but quite the contrary: more questions keep opening." Michal Sapir, "Kol
Ha'ir"
""Write more stories. You have fresh, vital talent, a proper style and an original way of
seeing things. I enjoyed your book very much." A.B. Yehoshua
"Corinna Hasofferett is a fascinating, thoughtful, even playful Israeli writer of Hebrew
fiction and nonfiction." BlogCritic
"You have 'a head of your own' in this uniform reality."
A.B. Yehoshua
On Unknown Territory/A Polyphonic Novel
"I was swept by this book as into a whirlpool. The picture it gives the reader is
highly significant in view of the canonic voices that dominate culture and try to
tell us what 'really happened'."
Professor Amiya Lieblich
"A fascinating document written in the form of a novel, a mosaic of testimonies
leaving an after-taste of amazement." 'The Green Page', "Ma'ariv"
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"One of the more extraordinary books published in Israel recently, this book
provides a different, surprising view of the State's early years, loving and
aching, and flowingly reviving an epoch." Meron Rapoport, "Haaretz"
"A thrilling, powerful book".
Kol Yisrael/ The Voice of Israel 'New on the Bookshelf' one hour radio
interview with Corinna
On Once She Was a Child/Intimate Landscapes
"Slowly the book invaded me, it has so much power. "Ma'ariv"
"Untarnished humanity." BlogCritic
"Your writing is captivating and a pleasure to read."
Marcia Gilespie, Editor-in-Chief, Ms Magazine
"Very engaging and unique."
Andrea MacPherson & Chris Labonte, Editors, Prism International
On Pink Pages
"For me, these stories, with all the restrained strength of their clear and
gentle understatement, became a capsule filled with sadness, beauty and
optimism. Suddenly it was obvious to me that there is no simple and known
answer waiting around the corner; rather the opposite: more and more questions
arise." "Kol Yerushalayim", Arts and Culture Supplement 1989
"Only after finishing the book does the reader begin to understand that
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each chapter renders time differently... several cross-sections of time,
some overlapping, like a giant kaleidoscope that alters its appearance
with the viewer and the angle of vision." "Yedioth Aharonot "1989
"Fragile and ephemeral situations of closeness... are described as well
as growing distance that ends in divorce, love and lovers, even random
flirtations. The stories progress with sensitivity to women in general who are
victims in situations where ties with others and with reality are tenuous; women
who dream and for whom reality is difficult."
'Haaretz'. Literary Supplement, 1989
"Corinna succeeds in depicting the despair and pain of a woman who
tries to make sense of her family and friends. Most interesting are the
interactions between a Jewish and an Arab family exchanging visits, their
hostility in the background. All the stories reveal acute perception,
psychological depth and accurate descriptions."
Prof. Hanoch Guy, Chair, Hebrew Department, Temple University
5. On Some Answers
"This book is a literary gem... The work is set in the stunning events of
the Six-Day War, but it was written before the October 1973 hostilities.
Still in the turbulent realities, the book retains much of the radiance of
the heroine, Hagit, despite being 'boxed in by life'."
Hebrew Abstracts, The National Association of Professors of Hebrew,
1974 University of Louisville
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"Corinna, a new name in Hebrew literature, has so far published two
stories, both marked by refinement of writing."
Massa Literary Supplement, "Davar" 1973
6. On Revelation
"The mystical atmosphere, poetic rhythm. and sentence structure create a special
tension and bring the novella 'Revelation' to story-telling perfection."
Aricha Prize Jury 1978
"It's been a long time since written words moved me so deeply. I feel
I've met with unique beauty. I would like to know more about the writer.
She is indeed a revelation herself. Until now I saw in Agnon's Tehilla a
model of good modern writing. But I think Corinna in Revelation has
surpassed it."
Kesster Jushka, Haifa 1979
Blog-readers' reactions
Itamar 13.1.2008
I don't know what is sadder/funnier: imagination or reality.
Anyway it's written wonderfully. I enjoyed it very much.
Dafna Levy 12.1.2008
Great! You are great, great, great!!
You made me laugh so much this morning.
Amiram 25.11.2006
I stay in Israel because of you and people like you: ones who make life here
meaningful and give us the reason to push off evil. For there is life beside it.
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David Shalit 28.6.2006
Bless you, Corinna, for your courage to lift up your head. For the wisdom with
which you see things and your lucid, articulate way of saying them.
Yael 21.11.2005
Corinna, you are The Great Amuser.
vi 21.11.2005
Direct hit. Corinna, for a long time now I have been reading you and enjoying it
tremendously.
Amit 14.5.2005
Wonderful and interesting. Thanks, Corinna, for a post that touches.
Saluting 28.12.2003
Strong and sharp. It was one of the texts that does honor to the Reshimot
website.
Itamar 23.12.2003
Fascinating!
Buscat 19.9.2005
"Feeling with one's fingertips how pain turns into history."
This is the third chapter of A Minyan of Lovers that I'm reading on the blog.
Not reading – lapping thirstily. It's been a long time since words have quenched
my thirst so and still left me thirsting.
The entire puzzle is not yet solved, of course, but something has begun to shape
up in my imagination and naturally I'll buy the book for I must read on. Both
out of curiosity to see how it will all come together, but mainly because I find
you write so wonderfully. Your language has reminded me, as in a dream,
something that has long been forgotten here in this land of verbosity and
graphomania.
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About the writer
In her forty years of literary activity, writer Corinna has published seven books,
three of them through commercial publishing houses and the Hebrew Writers
Association in Israel. In 2002 she formed an independent publishing enterprise
answering to the appellation HudnaPress (hida – Hebrew for riddle, and who
knows when hudna -ceasefire in Arabic - will finally find its way here) to
ensure herself of freedom of thought and artistic expression.
In 1975 she initiated an encounter of artists (among others, A.B. Yehoshua,
Anton Shamas and Aharon Meged) with Jewish and Arab youth in the Galilee.
In 1984 she fulfilled her social vision by initiating and founding Hilai
Association – Israeli Center for Creative Arts, which she directed for eleven
years. In this project she renovated apartments in the southern desert town of
Mitzpe Ramon and in the Arab-Jewish township of Ma'a lot-Tarshiha in the
western Galilee, bringing hundreds of artists and writers from the world over
for an enriching encounter with the local population, as well as writers and
artists-in-residence.
Corinna was born in Romania in the mid-1930s. During the Second World War
her family home was confiscated and the family was "permitted" to inhabit a
mildewed cubicle in the yard. In December 1947 the family reached Israel as
illegal immigrants, and after six months of incarceration in Cyprus, settled in
Giv'at Aliya, Jaffa. It took Corinna two years to master Hebrew and that has
been her writing language ever since, although the Romanian language and
European culture are present as undercurrents in her writing.
In the early1950s, still in her teens, she worked for three years with the famous
poet and editor Abraham Shlonsky at the then leading Sifriyat Hapoalim
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Publishing House. She was a member of the youth group that joined Kibbutz
Carmiah in 1956. In the 1960s she studied Hebrew and English Literature at Tel
Aviv University.
Corina Hasofferett is her official name in the public registry. Corinna is her
birth name. In Israel it was first Hebraized as Rinna, a name now dropped, as
she began writing and returned to her true self. She signs her books with her
proper name only, for she feels that women's family names are never their own
but rather their fathers' and husbands'. She added Hasofferett (Hebrew for 'the
woman-writer') after a respectable newspaper refused to publish an article she
wrote, and the radio cancelled her participation in a program because she
introduced herself with no family name.
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