Warm congratulations to Professor Yirmi Pinkus – illustrator, comedian, author, multidisciplinary lecturer, senior staff member in the Department of Visual Communication and lecturer in the Department of Fashion Design and in the master's degree in Design program – on being awarded the Ministry of Culture and Sport’s 2021 Prime Minister’s Prize for Hebrew Literary works for his book “The Greedy”.

After decades as an illustrator, Yirmi Pinkus was discovered as a writer through his book, “Professor Fabrikant’s Historical Cabaret” (2008), an outstanding debut novel in its linguistic sleight of hand and grotesque humor.

Since then, he has published three more books, “In Miniature” (2012), “Singles and Widowhood” (2017), and “The Greedy” (2021), with each book reaffirming him as one of the most original and refreshing voices in the local literary scene.

Pinkus returns with a sober longing for disappearing, crumbling worlds, from the shtetl in eastern Europe to little Tel Aviv, and breathes into them new and refreshing life, full of love and human compassion. With an extraordinary sensitivity to language and with Hebrew’s aging sister, Yiddish, reverberating in the background, Pinkus dives into the abyss of humanity and from it, mines gold.

Yirmi Pinkus (Photo: Tommy Harpaz)