Writing in a Time of Epidemic

ანოტაცია

Prima facie, so far it has been and still is impossible to offer a proper study of the literary manifestation of covid19 – the epidemic is not quite over yet; one doesn't have yet an historical perspective of it; writing, and moreover publishing, require time.
However, there are early sprouts of writing on covid19. We shall focus on Dana Freibach-Heifetz's book, In the Desert of Things ("Numbers, Deuteronomy"), which was written in Hebrew during the first two months of the epidemic (2-3/2020).
The book is composed of 113 fragments in various genres, which spread a fan of voices, sights and feelings of life under the epidemic – from everyday details (e.g. the engagement with food) to more cultural and philosophical layers (like concepts of inside and outside), combining realism with a world of dreams and fantasy. These micro-stories create a collage of images that captures the new reality. The book was published in two versions: one is only textual, and the other incudes 36 color photographs by the artist Yoram Kupermintz, that create a rich dialogue with the texts.
The paper examines the relation between the stylistic charac-terizations of this book – the form of fragments, various genres, and the combination of the texts with visual images – and its nature as a book which was written right in the eye of the Covid's storm. Furthermore, it exposes the thematic means that literary writing in a time of epidemic can use, in order to confront the trauma of such an extreme experience: myths; fresh glance at daily life, humor and fantasy; alongside a critical examination of the ars-poetics of such a writing.
This paper is a rare collaboration of the author, who is also a philosopher, and a literary researcher. Together, they aim to bring new perspectives of literature under Covid 19 in particular, and life in a time of epidemic in general, and the unique attributes it brings.