1. Yoram Kaniuk was an Israeli writer, painter, journalist, and theatre critic.
17 Facts About Yoram Kaniuk
1. 2.
Yoram Kaniuk's father, Moshe Kaniuk, was the first curator of Tel Aviv Museum of Art and was born in Ternopil, Galicia, which is in Ukraine but was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the Austrian partition of Poland.
3.
Yoram Kaniuk's grandfather was a Hebrew teacher who wrote his own textbooks.
4.
Yoram Kaniuk's family immigrated to Palestine in 1909, the year Tel Aviv was founded, and settled in Neve Tzedek, which has become part of the established Tel Aviv.
5.
In 1947, at the age of 17, Kaniuk joined the Palmach.
6.
In 1958 while living in the USA, Yoram Kaniuk married Miranda Baker, a Christian woman, and returned to Israel with her.
7.
Yoram Kaniuk befriended Charlie Parker in New York City in the fifties and made out with Billie Holiday, who wrote him a song.
8.
Yoram Kaniuk brought Holocaust survivors to Israel on the SS Pan York, and fought his way into besieged Jerusalem.
9.
Yoram Kaniuk had been spared death by the good graces of a British sniper, and stripped of his sabra arrogance by a story a young man told him about pulling diamonds from the rectums of his dead parents in order to stay alive in Nazi-occupied Europe.
10.
Yoram Kaniuk died of cancer on June 8,2013, at the age of 83.
11.
In May 2011, Yoram Kaniuk petitioned the Israeli Interior Ministry to change his religion status from "Jewish" to "no religion".
12.
Yoram Kaniuk has published 17 novels, a memoir, seven collections of short stories, two books of essays and five books for children and youth.
13.
Yoram Kaniuk's books have been published in 25 languages and he has won numerous literary prizes.
14.
An international conference dedicated to the works of Yoram Kaniuk was held at Cambridge University in March 2006.
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Yoram Kaniuk's work has been described as "existential writing that deviates from the Israeli consensus" and difficult to categorize.
16.
Yoram Kaniuk is known for the dark, somewhat bizarre humor in his writing.
17.
Yoram Kaniuk was widely rejected by the Israeli mainstream until the 21st century, when many young readers found his unique take on the sensitive Israeli social climate refreshing.