This Longing City
Modern Hebrew Poems of Jerusalem
translated, introduced and annotated by Rachel Tzvia Back
This anthology, translated, edited, annotated and introduced by Rachel Tzvia Back includes 77 Hebrew poems about Jerusalem, written by 41 modern Hebrew poets. The book is in a bilingual format, Hebrew originals facing Back’s English renderings. The collection seeks to introduce to the English-language reader a significant and varied range of Jerusalem poems beyond (though inclusive of) Amichai. Representing almost 100 years of poetic output –from the 1930s until today–and charged with the intense history of these years, this collection both enriches and complicates conventional representations of Jerusalem.
- Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back
"In this deeply felt, wide ranging, and marvelous anthology, Rachel Tzvia Back gives us an ancient city that has been imagined and reimagined by modern Hebrew poets. I come away from this book shaken and heartened by so much human longing, such poignant articulations of the uplifting work of poetry itself, how it brings together the sacred and profane, the earthly and unearthly."
— Edward Hirsch
"Jerusalem is the world’s most dizzying, mesmerizing city, with its swarms of deep spiritual thinkers and messianic crazies, its layered past thrusting itself into the present, and the rugged beauty of its stone-façaded buildings. The rich and variegated anthology of Hebrew poems Rachel Tzvia Back has assembled captures this arresting reality of the city and offers accomplished translations of the poems."
— Robert Alter
"The title of this extraordinary book suggests, almost anthropomorphically, that it is the City that is longing, while the poetry represents over a century—and draws on two millennia—of nostalgia for Jerusalem, even from within the City “herself.” Starting with the “holy grandmothers,” all these poets are in dialogue with the City, with their own places of origin, and with the poetry that has been written about Jerusalem since King Solomon “composed” the Song of Songs. Modern Hebrew poetry is rendered into resonant English in Rachel Tzvia Back’s extraordinary anthology, adding a significant volume to the shelf of translated literary addresses to the City, beginning with the King James Bible. "
— Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi
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