fountain pen tip
Zygmunt Frankel ~ WRITER-ARTIST

Often described as "a cynic with a human face", Zygmunt Frankel (1929-1997) was born in Poland and grew up in Siberia. He lived in England before settling in Israel in time to participate in the Sinai, Six-Day and Yom-Kippur wars. Israel, seen with an affectionate but critical eye, provides the background to about half his writing.

His novel Short War, Short Lives was published by Abelard-Schuman in New York. Stories and poems were published in Transatlantic Review, London Magazine, Adam International Review, The European, Tel-Aviv Review and other British, American and Israeli literary magazines. Frankel wrote mostly in English but a series of Hebrew children books that he both wrote and illustrated, recently appeared in both English and Japanese. A Witch Growing Old, a collection of translated short stories, was published in Hebrew and the award-winning The Octopus appeared in Arabic.

Frankel was also a painter, printer, translator, sculptor, editor, photographer and an accomplished automation engineer.


ART GALLERY - oils, linocuts, watercolors and more.

CHILDREN BOOKS - Freddy The Frog and much more!

SHORT STORIES - a collection of thirty-two, ranging from single-page "mini-stories" to short novels.

COLLECTED POEMS - with notes by the author.

THE SHARK REEF - a thriller. Skindiving among the corals of the Red Sea. A shark attack or an assassination? Israelis, Bedouin, terrorists, the Secret Service, an old, slightly mad, Nazi hunter, and two beautiful women.

THE DIARY OF A DELICIOUSLY PLUMP WOMAN - a novel. The diary of a young Polish woman, married shortly before The Second World War, spanning the outbreak of the war, the German occupation and liberation.

OEDIPUS - a play. Their legend completed, Oedipus, Iocasta, Laius, Tiresias, and the Sphinx, as well as Apollo himself and a curious little man with a notebook, meet to discuss some comparatively neglected aspects of the story: incest, sexual politics, fate, the shape of a Sphinx's wings, psychology, prophecy, and plagues.

THE MOTHER OF LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD - a play. This is the sequence, for grown-ups, to a factual tragedy which had been turned into a fairy tale: the trial of Little Red Riding Hood's mother for criminal negligence.

SIBERIAN DIARY - an autobiography. It is a part of the neglected story of thousands of families deported by the Russians from Eastern Poland in 1940. In spite of constant hunger, freezing winters, his father's absence, and the handicap of being skinny and Jewish, the author also had fishing, skiing, high school, Russian literature and songs, first loves and even parachute jumps from a small two-seater biplane at the local aeroclub.

THE ART OF THE JEWISH PAPERCUT - the specialty of his mother Giza, and edited by Zygmunt, this bilingual English/Hebrew album, contains extraordinary reproductions and research.

feed/back

(c)2024 Etcetera Editions - all rights reserved.

you are welcome to print this material for your personal reading, but may not modify or sell it