Unlikely Stories Presents

The first contributor at Unlikely Stories whose native language is not English, Elisha Porat's work gives the details and essence of tragedy, particularly the tragedy of warfare. A veteran of the Israeli army, he shows us vividly what it means to be surrounded by large-scale death and suffering. He demonstrates the necessity of seeking beauty and sanity in such situations, and shows us how tragedy and beauty, and therefore poetry, are inextricably intertwined. We present a few of his poems and several of his short stories here.

Elisha, who won Israel's Levi Eshkol Prime Minister's Prize for Literature in 1996, has published more than a dozen volumes of Hebrew fiction and poetry since 1973. He was born in 1938 to a "pioneer" family in Petah Tikva, Israel. In the early 1930's his parents were among the founders of Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, where Elisha was raised and still makes his home. He was drafted into Israeli Army in 1956, served in a frontline reconnaissance unit, and fought the Six Day war in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. As a lifelong member of his Kibbutz, Mr. Porat has worked as a farmer as well as a writer. His work is inspired by kibbutz and army life, and, more recently, the near-fatal heart attack he suffered a few years ago. Prominent in Israel, he is now working to expand his readership to a more international base, justifiably hoping that the trials of Israelis will have meaning to readers around the world. Mr. Porat currently performs editorial duties for several literary journals, and is active at Ariga, a website for peace, where English versions of many of his works are posted. He also has works at The Boston Review, Lynx: Poetry from Bath, A Writer's Choice Literary Journal, Log Cabin Chronicles, Ygdrasil, The Road of Shadows, The Oracular Tree, Poetry Magazine from New1.com Publications, PoetryRepairShop, The Poet's Haven, The Alliance of Literary Societies, Savoy, Swallow, The Weekly Poem, Art Villa, another useless webpage, The Castle, Kafka (in German), The Manhattanite, The Fiction Network, Moonshade, Phic-shun, Poetry Is a Sudden Process of Verbal Compression, Jewish Life, Sonata, Thunder Sandwich, Apples and Oranges, Poetry DownUnder, Canadian Content, Mocha Memoirs, Morpo Review, Agnieszka's Dowry, Mind Fire, The Miserere Review, PIF Magazine, San Francisco Salvo, Thunder Sandwich, Tikkun, Funky Dog Publishing, m e stubbs poetry journal, Greenwich Village Gazette. You can write to him at porat_el@einhahoresh.org.il (note that there's an underscore between the porat and the el), or check out the information on his books at the Unlikely Stories bookstore.

Elisha's works here at Unlikely Stories are:

Because Clean Slate and Purification are quite long, Adobe Acrobat files are provided so that you might conveniently print these stories out. Please understand that Elisha Porat owns the copyright on these stories and you do NOT have permission to distribute them. In order to use the Acrobat file, you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free download.