Alex Epstein (; born 1971,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

) is an Israeli writer, known for his micro stories. He moved to

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

at the age of eight and lived with his family in the city of

Lod Lod (, ), also known as Lydda () and Lidd (, or ), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The ci ...

. Epstein received his first publishing contract from Zamora-Bitan at 23.Eric Herschthal
Less Is More: Alex Epstein’s Poetic Prose"
''

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'', April 25, 2010. He has since published three novels and eight collections of stories in Hebrew, as well as numerous pieces in English-language journals including ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bost ...

'', ''

The Kenyon Review ''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ''T ...

'', ''

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'', ''JuxtaProse Literary Magazine'', ''Zeek,'' ''Electric Literature'', ''

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'', and ''The Collagist''. His translations in ''Electric Literature'' were illustrated by renowned Israeli artist and animator,

David Polonsky David Polonsky (; born 1973) is an Israeli book illustrator and artistic film director. His illustrations appeared in all major Israeli magazines and newspapers and illustrated many children's books, for which he received multiple awards. He also ...

. Epstein has twice received the Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for Authors and Poets (2003; 2016). Epstein lives in

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and has served as a writer-in-residence for the

International Writing Program The International Writing Program (IWP) is a writing residency for international artists in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Since 2014, the program offers online courses to many writers and poets around the world. Since its inception in 1967, the I ...

at the

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, and as a Schusterman Family Foundation Artist-in-Residence at the

University of Denver The University of Denver (DU) is a private research university in Denver, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1864, it has an enrollment of approximately 5,700 undergraduate students and 7,200 graduate students. It is classified among "R1: D ...

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(2010). In 2010 he took part of the

PEN World Voices The PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature is an annual week-long literary festival held in New York City and Los Angeles. The festival was founded by Salman Rushdie, Esther Allen, and Michael Roberts and was launched in 2005. The f ...

Festival in New York, he was featured in a panel with other writers such as

Claire Messud Claire Messud (born October 8, 1966) is an American/Canadian/French novelist and literature and creative writing professor. She is best known as the author of the novel '' The Emperor's Children'' (2006). Early life Born in Greenwich, Connecticut ...

, Lorraine Adams,

Norman Rush Norman Rush (born October 24, 1933) is an American writer most of whose introspective novels and short stories are set in Botswana in the 1980s. He won the U.S. National Book Award and the 1992 ''Irish Times''/Aer Lingus International Fiction Pr ...

Yiyun Li Yiyun Li (Chinese: 李翊雲 - ''Li Yiyun'') (born November 4, 1972) is a Chinese-born writer and professor who has lived and worked in the United States since entering graduate school. She writes exclusively in English. Her short stories and no ...

and

Aleksandar Hemon Aleksandar Hemon ( sr-Cyrl, Александар Xeмoн; born September 9, 1964) is a Bosnian- American author, essayist, critic, television writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels '' Nowhere Man'' (2002) and '' The Lazarus P ...

. Alex Epstein's very brief stories (some of them as short as one sentence) have been described as examples of the "philosophical, or allegorical short-short story", one of the primary types of short story common to contemporary Hebrew writing. In a ''

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'' review of Epstein's second English-language collection, writer Ian McGillis said that Epstein's works invited comparison to both "contemporary

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-style pranksters and the august lineage of

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

, Jorge Luis Borges, Borges and Bruno Schulz". Likewise, ''The Forward'' named Epstein "Israel's Jorge Luis Borges, Borges." Epstein's work has been translated into numerous languages, including English, French, Portuguese and Russian. American publisher Clockroot Books published two translated collections of his work, ''Blue Has No South'' (2010) and ''Lunar Savings Time'' (2011). His second collection was widely and well-reviewed in ''Publishers Weekly'', ''Three Percent'', ''The Millions'', ''Words Without Borders'', and elsewhere. An experimentalist both in terms of narrative and format, Epstein's literature app "True Legends" was made available in 2014 and reviewed by the ''Los Angeles Times, LA Times''. Israel's premier daily newspaper, ''Haaretz'', regularly publishes his stories under the title "Ktsartsarim" (short-shorts). The English ''Haaretz'' has also featured his work. His Flash fiction, microfiction has been the subject of at least one peer-reviewed academic article in ''Shofar (journal), Shofar'' (2015), "The Shape of Time in Microfiction: Alex Epstein and the Search for Lost Time."

Books in English

* ''Blue Has No South'', Clockroot Books, 2010, (paperback). * ''Lunar Savings Time'', Clockroot Books, 2011, (paperback)."Lunar Savings Time" (review)
''Publishers Weekly'', Jul 18, 2011.

References

External links

Alex Epstein's official website

Alex Epstein in Modern Hebrew Literature Lexicon

Institute for Translation of Hebrew Literature
- list of works
Words Without Borders
- ten stories
Guernica
- ten stories {{DEFAULTSORT:Epstein, Alex 1971 births Living people Israeli male short story writers Israeli short story writers Israeli novelists International Writing Program alumni Recipients of Prime Minister's Prize for Hebrew Literary Works