Dr. Hila Amit
ABOUT
Dr. Hila Amit is an award-winning author. She studied creative writing at the Tel -Aviv University and holds a PhD in the field of Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London.
Hila Amit’s fiction & creative non-fiction appeared in Lilith, Jalta, Emrys Journal, The Washington Square Review, The Sycamore Review, Granta and several prominent Israeli literary journals. Her story, 'The Kinneret', was recently selected for the Sue Lile Inman Fiction Prize. She received fellowships from The Vermont Studio Center and the McDowell Colony.
Her short stories collection, Moving On From Bliss (Tel-Aviv: Am Oved, 2016), was awarded the Israeli Ministry of Culture Prize for Debut Authors, and was recently selected as one of the 10 best literary works in Hebrew for the years 2010-2020.
Her non-fiction book, A Queer Way Out – The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel (Albany: SUNY, 2018) was awarded the AMEWS (Association of Middle East Women's Studies) 2019 Book Award.
In 2014 she established the International Hebrew School, through which she aims to advance Hebrew learning using a queer, feministic and pluralistic method.
Her Hebrew learning book, Hebrew For All (עברית לכולן) was published in English and German. She is the co-founder of “Anu אנו نحن: Jews and Arabs Writing in Berlin”, and is curating literary events which bring together Jews and non-Jews with a Middle Eastern heritage together.
FICTION
Read from Chapter 1
(English)
NON FICTION
Her non-fiction book, A Queer Way Out – The Politics of Queer Emigration from Israel (Albany: SUNY, 2018) was awarded the AMEWS (Association of Middle East Women's Studies) Book Award. Her nonfiction essays span on notions of queer kinship, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, immigration, language and more. Her essays have appeared in The Sycamore Review and more.
Publications in English
Queer Way Out – The politics of queer Israeli emigration (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2018)
Winner of the 2019 AMEWS Book Award
Publications in Hebrew
HEBREW TEACHING
Dr. Amit’s approach to the teaching of a language is based on feminist and queer perspectives, which reflect both the topics being studied, the presentation of the material and the vocabulary being taught. In 2014 she has established the International Hebrew School.
Hebräisch für Alle- The German Volume (Münster:Edition Assemblage, 2020)
Hebrew For All - The first queer feminist
Hebrew learning book (Haifa: Pardes, 2020)
IN THE PRESS
Vigorously written, with a delicate and precise hand and a rare combination of wit and compassion.
Author Amos Oz
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The main strength of the book is the ability to undermine stigmas and prejudices and to undo the process of marking people as “the other.” Amit writes differently about “different” people … Amit’s prose is endowed with restraint, quietness, empathy, much delicacy and a minimalist style … The last story in the book is the loveliest, most complete and most melancholic in the collection … Moving on from Bliss is characterized by a unique and beautiful voice … by the courage to write political-social literature without compromise or fawning, by a humanistic methodology.
Vered Lee, Haaretz
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The trials faced by the characters are serious, and gradually become more serious as the book unfolds. At times, good literature is literature that focuses on critical decisions … It’s been years since I read a book that has a title that is so intriguing, so different … For Hila Amit, to move on from bliss means emptiness and loss. But, for her moving on from bliss also means nobility
Nissim Calderon, Odot
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In order to explain the satisfaction this short book elicits; the pleasantly tearful throbs that occur at a frequency of once or twice during almost all of the stories that it contains; the response of a number of characters on the brink of despair and grief to Hila Amit’s firm but not aggressive treatment – in order to explain all of these, one must go back to the misleading first impression given by the encounter with her first book Moving on from Bliss ... Unlike the masochistic, traumatized approach that has gradually become the trademark of Israeli literature … Amit finds different ways, some of them simple and very effective, to rein in tragedy and the cheap handling of heartache … Nothing here is bombastic or self-satisfied. The characters themselves control the situations, playing gently with the permissible and the forbidden … An empathetic, measured connection is created between the reader and the stories
Yoni Livneh, Yedioth Ahronoth
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It’s been ages since I read such a good and promising first book … Like in real literature, the stylistic implement is suited to the author’s goals … I do not have words of my own to describe the delicacy, and the richness, and the beauty.
Nissim Calderon, Walla
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A lovely collection … Gentle, sensitive prose about life.
Karin Michaeli, At
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גיבורי הספר הזה הם מי שההגמוניה הישראלית סימנה כ"אחר", ויופיו טמון בכך שהוא לא מניף דגלים, אלא חותר תחת הדעות הקדומות בכוחה של האנושיות
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בספרה הראשון ברור שהסופרת הילה עמית לא מעוניינת לערפל. היא לא מעוניינת להכות מסביב לצמח. היא הולכת בעברית הישירה ביותר אל לב הצמח, אל לב ההחלטה. והחלטות הן בדיוק הדבר המרכזי בספר הנהדר הזה.
IN THE GERMAN PRESS
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„Wir wollten keinen weißen deutschen Mann, der uns die Situation in Nahost erklärt“
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Die Nahost Union ist Hier