Ronny Someck

Ronny Someck

Orly Castel Bloom was born in Tel Aviv in 1960 to parents originally from Egypt. She has two children. Castel Bloom studied film at the Beit Zvi Institute and Tel Aviv University, and the influence of her training in cinema can be detected in her writing.  She has taught creative writing at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Sapir College.

Her first collection of stories, Not Far from the Center of Town (1987), generated great interest and marked her the leader of a new style of writing in Hebrew literature. She has published 13 other books, among them: Where Am I (1990), Dolly City (1992), Let’s Behave Ourselves (children’s book, 1995), Free Radicals (2000), Human Parts (2002), and Winter Life (2010), which were shortlisted for the Sapir Prize. Her latest book, An Egyptian Novel, has earned her the 2015 Sapir Prize.

Her books have been translated into 11 languages, including: French, English, Dutch, German, Swedish, Spanish, Serbian, Italian, Chinese and more. In 1997 she wrote a screenplay for the film Trends, based on her story. The short film, directed by Menashe Noy, was broadcasted on television. Castel Bloom has received the Tel Aviv Foundation Award, the Alterman Prize, the Neuman Prize, the Lea Goldberg Prize, the Meir Ariel Prize for Creativity in Hebrew Language, and the Sapir Prize.