Poetry
פרחי אש
Not translated into English
Haim Gouri · 1949
Synopsis
The first book by a young Palmach fighter: lovers' night walks in the countryside, war, the sacrifice of youth, the fellowship of comrades and the fate of love in times of danger. A cycle, L'Oiseau migrateur, meets Jewish survivors in post-war Europe; a poem set in a railway station gives voice to a “we” that has sworn to give itself entirely. The best known, Voici nos corps étendus, written in memory of thirty-five comrades who fell on the way to the Etzion bloc, speaks in the name of the dead and asks that they be remembered.
Context
Gouri wrote some of these poems far from home, during his mission in Hungary: his poem of the dead was composed there in memory of the thirty-five of the January 1948 convoy, who were trying to resupply the besieged kibbutzim of the Etzion Bloc. The poem first appeared in the press, then in this book. The collection was received with enthusiasm by readers and by the literary world alike, and made its author one of the voices of the generation of 1948.
Who it is for
A collection of poems in Hebrew, with no French edition; poems by Gouri can be read in English in anthologies.
Prizes and reception
Enthusiastically received on its publication, it earned its author the Ussishkin Prize in 1961.