Uri Orlev | Biography

"Uri Orlev's life and works are a testimony to the indomitable spirit of childhood," writes Meena Khorana in her Bookbird article celebrating the Polish-born Israeli author's 1996 Hans Christian Anderson Award, the most prestigious of all international prizes given to an author for young people. Although Orlev writes in Hebrew, translations of his works, which include three adult novels and more than a dozen novels for children and young adults, have garnered him an admiring audience worldwide. The handful of his books available in English translation have won him numerous prizes, including three Mildred L. Batchelder awards for best foreign language book translated into English. When granting the Hans Christian Anderson Award, the prize jury commended Orlev's work, in a statement quoted by Khorana. "Whether his stories are set in the Warsaw Ghetto or his new country Israel," they observed, "he never loses the view of the child he was....
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