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Last update - 19:05 21/05/2008 Questions & Answers A conversation with Evan Fallenberg By David B. Green Evan Fallenberg is an American-born Israeli writer, translator and teacher, whose first novel, "Light Fell," was just published in the United States (Soho Press, 229 pages, $22). Also newly out (from Delacorte) is Fallenberg's translation of "Beaufort," by Ron Leshem (published in Hebrew in 2006 as "Im Yesh Gan Eden," which was the basis for the Oscar-nominated Israeli film "Beaufort"), and his rendering of Meir Shalev's "A Pigeon and a Boy" was also recently published by Schocken, and last month won the National Jewish Book Award in Fiction for 2007. Fallenberg, 46, grew up in Ohio, and attended college at Georgetown University; he only began learning Hebrew when he settled in Israel, in 1985. In "Light Fell," he tells the story of Joseph Licht, an Orthodox Israeli scholar of comparative literature who at the age of 30, and newly returned from the U.S. with his PhD, picks up and leaves his wife and five young sons, after falling in love and beginning an affair with a brilliant Jerusalem rabbi. The scandalous relationship is passionate but doomed, as Yoel, the rabbi, takes his own life. (The title refers to a Talmudic phrase, "nafal nehora," but also alludes to the "fall" that Licht, German for "light," undergoes.) When the book opens, it is 20 years later, and Joseph has invited his five grown sons -- all of whom are more or less estranged from him -- to join him in Tel Aviv to help celebrate his 50th birthday. He is long divorced from their mother, and no longer observant, but he has struggled, albeit with limited success, to maintain a relationship with each of his boys. He hopes this family Shabbat will enable him to explain to his sons the tough choices he made in his life, and that they will finally be able accept him for what he is. Haaretz spoke with Fallenberg by phone from his home in Emek Hefer. *** Q: How did you get from being a college student in Washington, D.C., to your current life in Israel? A I had spent my junior year of college studying in Switzerland, and that opened up my eyes to the world. After graduation, I went to work for the Japanese Ministry of Education for a year, where my job was to prove to the locals in a certain rural area of southern Japan that English was a living language. In Hita, a town of 70,000, I was the only non-Japanese. I was a celebrity. It was shocking. People asked for cuttings of my hair, and my autograph. Teenage girls would scream when they saw me. I didn't like it. My plan was to go back to America for a year, then come to Israel for a year to study Hebrew and Jewish texts -- I wanted to connect to my Jewish roots -- and then to settle in Paris. In 1985 I came to Israel, and I felt at home. It just fit. Q: The personal details about you on your book jacket describe you as "the father of two sons," but don't mention a wife. Is "Light Fell" your story? A: When I work on characters, even if they start out resembling someone real, the more I work on them, the more they take on a life of their own. Sometimes they even inform me of experiences that I didn't know they had. What I will say is that while Joseph is not me, we share some key issues. I am fascinated -- in life and literature -- with characters whose lives are on a certain path and who think they're going in a certain direction, when something comes along and turns them upside down. It's no surprise that I wrote about those aspects of my life. Q: So, where did the plot come from? A: My general impression is that most writers have a flash, and they see a character in their minds, or a scene or a sentence pops into their minds. And then they're off. For me, a whole story has appeared -- I feel like it's a gift, and I have to make the most of it. I'm now at work on a second novel, and a week after I had the concept in my head, when I tried to remember where it came from, I had no idea. This happened a third time, too maybe a year ago. I remember clearly, it was 6 in the morning, I was awake, and it came to me. I ran to the computer, and wrote down everything I knew about the story. It felt like an inconvenient lover, something wonderful and breathtaking but completely inappropriate. I left the story in my computer, and I haven't looked at it since. Between the idea and the fleshing out of it, that's the hard part. That still takes years. It took me a good five years to get "Light Fell" ready. And that takes place close to home. With the second book, I knew that my main character lived in Warsaw, Copenhagen and Berlin, and I had never been to those places. So, I got on a plane and a boat and I followed the tracks of the character I'd created. It's an expensive vocation. I knew that this character, who is ultimately Israeli, had his roots in those places, and I knew I had to make that trip... but it's scary to talk about a book that isn't finished. Q: Are there manuscripts of other unpublished novels tucked away in your desk? A: No, this was my first big writing project. I don't write short stories either. Actually, two years ago Haaretz's [advertising supplement] Essence had a short-story contest. You had to use certain words in it, like "luxury" and "Israel." I thought I'd have my students enter, and it seemed only fair that I should do the exercise myself. I didn't tell them, though, and we didn't put our names on the stories when we critiqued them in workshop. After we workshopped them, we sent them into the contest -- and I won! When they called to tell me, I burst out laughing, it was so unexpected. The prize was $100 and publication in Essence. I think that I never wrote when I was younger because I was a perfectionist, and I stopped myself before I started to write. Until I gave myself permission to write, I was in my early 30s. I was ripe for it by then. I'd been walking around with this story ["Light Fell"] for a year and a half. Before I sat down to write a word, I already knew the characters. Q: The descriptions of religious observance, and the conversations between Joseph and Yoel about texts are very authentic in the book. Are you yourself Orthodox? A: When I came to Israel, I went to yeshiva for a while. That style of learning didn't suit me, and I was kind of an odd fish in the yeshiva world, but I did lead a religious lifestyle for 15 or 20 years, so it does feel natural to me. The character of Yoel, however, posed a particular problem for me. I had created this genius rabbi, a man way beyond my knowledge and experience. I was put in touch with Rabbi Steven Greenberg who is, as far as I know, the only openly gay Orthodox rabbi. First I called him, and I explained that I was writing this novel, and I asked if he would be interviewed. He asked me if the book's hero commits suicide. He said, "Gay characters always commit suicide, and I don't want to have anything to do with that." I said that the main character, Joseph, doesn't commit suicide, and when I went to New York, we met. I told him immediately that there was another character who did kill himself. Still, after two hours of talking, he helped me get into Yoel's head, and even helped me figure out how someone with such respect for Jewish law could actually have used halakhah to condone killing himself. Q: What was it like translating "Beaufort," which is narrated by a young army lieutenant of Mizrahi background who is in command of a company guarding a bunker in southern Lebanon shortly before Israel's withdrawal from there, in 2000? A: To translate literary fiction, you have to have excellent command of your first language. The second language doesn't have to be quite as perfect. I have no hesitation getting help. I have consultants for every book. For the Meir Shalev book, I needed people who were older, with a rich command of classical and Biblical Hebrew. For "Beaufort," my kids were helpful, especially my soldier son, because of slang. I served in the army, but I wasn't in Lebanon. What always worries me is whether I will find the voice of the author -- the voice is everything. With each book I wonder, will I get it this time. I usually read about 40 pages, and by then I am comfortable, and I know I can do the book. I don't finish reading it, though. You can learn a lot -- I do manuscript consulting, and I can always tell with the first 20 pages where the problems are, what works. While I'm translating, I keep about 20 pages ahead of myself. Then when I finish translating, I go back and rework the first chapters. It was a lot of fun doing "Beaufort," it's so out there, so crazy. I just returned from a tour in the U.S. for "Light Fell." Everywhere I went, I read from and discussed my book, but I also read from my translations. I love my work as a translator; it's not just something I do between publishing my own novels. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Fear of extinction The state of over 20 species of birds in Israel has worsened considerably. Taking advantage Jerusalem police probe possible gang rape of disabled woman.

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