Meir Shalev’s “The Blue Mountain”

04/21/21 • 7 min

Set in a rural village prior to the creation of the state of Israel, The Blue Mountain describes a community of eastern European immigrants as they pioneer life in a new land. Narrated by Baruch, a grandson of one of the founding fathers of the village, the novel offers not only a fascinating account of the hardships experienced by the Jewish pioneers, but is also extremely funny and imaginative. It is arranged as a series of vignettes, narrated by Baruch, a mortician, who reflects on the many people he has buried in a remote village.

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The Blue Mountain. By Meir shalev. Translated by Hillel Halkin. Cannongate Books, 2001.

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The Blue Mountain. By Meir shalev. Translated by Hillel Halkin. Cannongate Books, 2001.

Previous Episode

The Poetry of Avot Yeshurun

On this episode, Marcela features the poems of a fascinating writer whose pen name was Avot Yeshurun. He published his first book of poems in 1942, and his last book appeared in 1992, on the day before he died.

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“Memories are a House” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Leon Weiseltier, Poetry Magazine

“The Son of the Wall” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Leon Weiseltier, Poetry Magazine

“The Collection” by Avot Yeshurun. Translated by Harold Schimel, Poetry International Rotterdam

“A Day Shall Come” by Avot Yeshurun, translated by A. Z. Foreman in Poems Found in Translation

Next Episode

Jews and Words

In 2014, historian Fania Salzberger Oz, and her father, the late writer Amos Oz, paired up to write a book which is “a nonfiction, speculative, raw, and occasionally playful attempt to say something a bit new on a topic of immense pedigree... the relationship of Jews with words.”