Agnon, Shmuel Yosef (1888-1970)

Israeli novelist. Born in Buczacz, Galicia (now part of western Ukraine), he made it the setting of his most celebrated work, Tmol Shilshom/A Guest for the Night (1937) (translated 1968). He shared the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966 with Nelly Sachs.

He settled in Palestine in 1909, and took the name of Agnon from his story ‘Agunot/Forsaken Wives’ (1908). Much of his writing incorporates influences from his childhood in Galicia, including the novel Hakhnasat Kala/The Bridal Canopy (1931) (translated 1937).