Shay K. Azoulay
Shay K. Azoulay (Hebrew: שי אזולאי) is an Israeli writer who writes in English and Hebrew.
Shay K. Azoulay | |
---|---|
Born | Tel Aviv | December 24, 1979
Occupation | novelist, playwright, translator |
Nationality | Israeli |
Citizenship | Israel |
Period | 2005–present |
Genre | Literary Fiction |
Website | |
skazoulay |
Plays
Azoulay's debut play, "The Platoon", a satire about the IDF, won first place in the 2012 staged reading festival "Zav Kriah".[1] The play was staged in Tel Aviv's Tzavtah Theater in 2014-2015 and received good reviews in the press, including a review by prominent theater critic Michael Handelzalts, who compared it to the work of Hanoch Levin.[2] The play also stirred controversy, following an article which mistakenly claimed that the play depicts IDF soldiers raping Palestinian women. A member of the Tel Aviv municipal council sent a letter to the theater, demanding that they stop the staging of the play.[3] Azoulay's other work includes the one-act play "Shade", which participated in the Tzavtah Theater's 2012 Short play Festival, and "Barabas" - a reimagining of Christopher Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta".
Fiction
Azoulay's debut novel Lazaretto was published in summer 2019 in Hebrew.[4] A review in Haaretz described the novel as “an ambitious, high-tension novel, seeped in paranoia... Lazaretto is a disturbing and stirring dystopia which haunted me while I was reading it and even after I’d finished.”[5]
Azoulay has also written a series of short stories entitled "Minor Writers of the Entropic Age". These stories include "The Invention of H. P. Lovecraft", published in Flapperhouse Magazine,[6] "The Bard of Hastings" published in The Cost of Paper [7] and "Permaculture", which won second prize in the 2016 Zoetrope: All-Story short fiction contest.[8] Also included in this series is "Jacob Wallenstein, Notes for a Future Biography", a work of fiction regarding a "forgotten" Israeli science fiction novelist and his 1,000 page magnum opus. In 2013 Azoulay submitted this story to Tablet magazine, claiming that it was a true account of the nonexistent writer's life and work. An editor at the magazine was initially excited by the story, but eventually discovered that it was a hoax, though he decided to publish the story anyway, together with a forward explaining his discovery of the hoax.[9]
Other short works by Azoulay have appeared in The Molotov Cocktail and McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
Translations
Azoulay also works as a Hebrew to English translator, translating non-fiction,[10] children's literature, and plays, including works by playwright Hanoch Levin.[11]
References
- IDF Satire wins first prize - Ynet, 1 April 2012 (in Hebrew)
- "The Platoon" - Princes of the Washtub - Haaretz, 18 January 2015 (in Hebrew)
- Senior Tel Aviv Council Member: Tzavtah is Demeaning the IDF - Ynet, 6 January 2015 (in Hebrew)
- Lazaretto, Shay K. Azoulay (in Hebrew)
- Lazaretto: In This Novel the "State of Tel Aviv" Becomes a Dystopian Reality - Haaretz, 20 January 2020 (in Hebrew)
- The Invention of H. P. Lovecraft - Flapperhouse Magazine, Fall 2016.
- The Bard of Hastings - The Cost of Paper Vol. 5, Spring 2018.
- Twentieth Annual Zoetrope: All-Story Short Fiction Contest - List of winners, Zoetrope: All-Story
- Jacob Wallenstein Is the Greatest Science-Fiction Writer to Never Have Lived - Tablet Magazine, 16 October 2013
- Yom Kippur War: Syrians at the Border by Danny Asher
- Job and Jesus Combine to Overcome - New York Times review of 2006 production of Hanoch Levin's Job's Passion translated by Azoulay
External links
- Shay K. Azoulay - official website.
- Shay Azoulay on the Israeli Dramatists Website.
- Shay Azoulay on The Short Story Project.