Which Israeli writer shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs?

Shmuel Yosef Agnon shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs. Agnon was honored for profoundly characteristic narrative art with motifs from Jewish life, while Sachs was recognized for lyrical and dramatic writing about Israel’s destiny.

Agnon was born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes in 1888 in Buczacz, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now in Ukraine. He wrote mainly in Hebrew and became one of the central figures of modern Hebrew literature. His fiction draws on biblical, Talmudic and Jewish folkloric traditions while portraying the tensions of modern Jewish life.

He moved between Europe and Ottoman Palestine, later settling in what became Israel. His best-known works include Only Yesterday, A Guest for the Night and Shira. The name “Shmuel Yosef Agnon” is the writer’s full form; he is also widely called S. Y. Agnon or simply Shai Agnon. He was the first Hebrew-language writer to receive the Literature Nobel.