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| Author Yael Lotan Avishag |
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As the relationship between King David and Avishag grows more complex, Lotan tells the story of King David's kingdom through his conversations with Avishag. Avishag, is ``used as a sounding board", says Lotan. ``I meant the main character to be King David, not Avishag. It is the Arabian nights in reverse." ``I was literally intrigued," by the biblical story, says Lotan. "It was a sort of coup d'etat." The biblical story, found in I Kings I:1-4, tells us that when King David was very old he was unable to get warm at night, despite being covered with blankets. A search was made throughout the land for a young virgin to warm him in his bed. Avishag the Shunamite was brought to the king and became a companion to him, and ministered to him, the king ``knew her not''. The description of David's City and the surrounding areas enables the reader to be transported to the region in the time of King David’s reign. The novel is Lotan's fictionalized version of King David's kingdom and its intrigues. She uses Avishag the Shunamite to tell the story because Lotan imagines that Shir HaShirim (Song of Songs) might have been written by a woman. "I had read Shir HaShirim; if you read it in Hebrew, you can't help being struck by the concept that it was written by a woman; it could be attributed to Avishag," says Lotan. Born into an old Israeli family, Lotan lived in Jerusalem under the British Mandate. As a teen she moved to Great Britain, and then on to Jamaica and eventually, the United States. The mother of two children, one white and one of color, Lotan witnessed racism first hand. Her older white son from a first marriage was treated differently in the New York City school system than Lotan's daughter, whose father is an African-American. Seeing this, the family decided to return to Israel in the 1970s where they felt all family members would get equal treatment. Although she has mixed feelings about Israel, Lotan feels most secure living in Tel Aviv, together with her extended family. Whereas Lotan writes her novels in English, she writes book reviews for the Hebrew daily newspapers, Yediot Ahronot and Ha'aretz, in Hebrew, and has taught translation at university. "Hebrew is wonderful for poetry, Biblical Hebrew is archaic. English lends itself to many genres, which is good for fiction. I wrote Avishag in a combination of King James English and modern English giving the reader a sense that they are getting something old." The idea for the book evolved over a period of 15 years and the writing is evocative of the land, its terrain, and the way of life that might have been in the time of King David. The language has a musical cadence that alludes to times past, and allows the reader to travel through time and space, creating a literary work that could have taken place three millennia ago. ``David is a remarkable character. He is terribly real and complex," says Lotan. "This is not a modern parable. We don't have to expect characters from 3000 years ago to be like us." The novel, Avishag, belongs to to a growing genre of Modern Midrash. Interview by M. Kaplan-Green |
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