Uri Orlev

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Uri Orlev (Hebrew: אורי אורלב; born Jerzy Henryk Orlowski in 1931) is an award-winning Israeli children's author and translator of Polish-Jewish origin. Born in Warsaw, Poland, he survived the war years in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (where he was sent after his mother was shot by the Nazis). After the war he moved to Israel. He began writing children's literature in 1976 and has since published over 30 books, which are often biographical. His books have been translated from Hebrew into 25 languages, while he himself has also translated Polish literature into Hebrew. One of his most famous books, which was also adapted as a play and as a film, is the semi-autobiographical The Island on Bird Street.

In 1996 Orlev received the Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's literature. The jury's statement was:

"Uri Orlev's experience as a Jewish boy in war-torn Poland is the background of this outstanding writer for children. Whether his stories are set in the Warsaw ghetto or his new country Israel, he never loses the perspective of the child he was. He writes at a high literary level, with integrity and humor, in a way which is never sentimental, exhibiting the skill to say much in few words. Uri Orlev shows how children can survive without bitterness in harsh and terrible times."

[edit] External links

• Biography & Bibliography from the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature