Literatureראובן שניר

Reuven Snir

Reuven Snir is an Israeli scholar of Arabic language and literature at the University of Haifa and a translator of poetry who won the Tchernichovsky Prize in 2014.

born 1953Research on modern Arabic literatureStudy of Arab-Jewish literatureTranslating Arabic poetry

Born: 6 September 1953, Haifa
Occupation: linguist, literary theorist, literary scholar, translator
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Reuven Snir was born in 1953 in Haifa

Reuven Snir was born in Haifa in 1953. His family had immigrated from Baghdad in 1951, and his parents spoke Iraqi Arabic at home, while Hebrew was his mother tongue.

He went to the Nirim School in the Mahne David transit camp near Haifa and then to the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa. At the Hebrew University he studied philosophy and Arabic, earned an M.A. in 1982 with an edition of an 8th century ascetic manuscript, and received a Ph.D. in 1987 for work on mystical elements in modern Arabic poetry.

From 1977 to 1988 he was a senior news editor at the Arabic service of the Voice of Israel. He taught at the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University and, from 1988, the University of Haifa, where he became full professor in 2007. He chaired the Department of Arabic Language and Literature from 2000 to 2004 and was Dean of Humanities from 2010 to 2015.

He held research fellowships in Oxford, Berlin and Harvard and taught in Heidelberg and Berlin. His books study modern Arabic literature as a system and Arab-Jewish literature and identity. He is married with 2 daughters and lives in Haifa.