Can't stop a Keret

Keret will appear at the ninth installment of Let the Words Do You, a monthly meeting of writers and performers at Holon's Mediatheque.

By ARIE HASIT
etgar keret 224 88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
etgar keret 224 88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
I first encountered Etgar Keret as a first-year university student in a beginners' Hebrew class. Our professors had invited Keret and so assigned us some of his short stories to prepare us for his visit. Lucky for our class, Keret was celebrating the publication of The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God, a collection of his short stories in English translation. While the more advanced students enjoyed Keret's original Hebrew work, my classmates and I read him in translation. Our professor was confident that we would all equally enjoy his work and still benefit from our subsequent meeting with him. Indeed, the great appeal of Etgar Keret is that his work in translation did speak to us. And, for those of us who continued our linguistic studies, we came to appreciate his works in Hebrew as well. These days, most of Keret's short stories have been translated into English and he has started to turn more and more of his stories into full-length feature films, in Hebrew and English. In this vein, Keret will appear at the ninth installment of Let the Words Do You, a monthly meeting of writers and performers at Holon's Mediatheque, alongside actors Karine Ophir and Tzahi Grad, musicians Shlomi Shaban and Eran Tzur, and others. Ophir and Grad will read from Keret's short story collection, Shaban and Tzur will perform songs written by Keret, and scenes will be screened from Keret's movies Jellyfish and his new English-language feature, $9.99. The stop-motion animated film, based on six short stories from Longing for Kissinger and Pipelines, features the voices of such renowned actors as Oscar-winning Geoffrey Rush and Anthony LaPaglia. And, of course, Keret will discuss his works, "letting his words do you." Friday, September 12 at noon at the Holon Mediatheque (6 Golda Meir Blvd. (across from the Holon Mall), (03) 502-1255) Tickets are NIS 40. For more information visit mediatheque.org.il.