Jonathan Vidgop
Israeli Writer
BIOGRAPHY
Jonathan Vidgop was born in Leningrad in 1955. He was systematically expelled from every Soviet institution he entered: school, the Institute of Culture, VGIK film school, the Theater Institute, and multiple theaters. He was stripped of Soviet citizenship in 1988 and repatriated to Israel. In the USSR he served as an army private beyond the Arctic Circle, worked as a cattle drover, locksmith, sailor, stagehand, and screenwriter-director of 21 plays, 12 of which were shut down by the authorities.
In Israel: director and researcher. Author of twelve books. His primary genre is magical realism; critics have compared his prose to Borges, Kafka, and Bruno Schulz. His novel Testimony was published by Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie (NLO) in Moscow in the prestigious series Khudozhestvennaya Slovesnost. His prose and poetry have been published in English translation in literary journals across more than 30 countries worldwide.
He has published scientific articles on chaos theory in Physical Review E and Physica A, and on the intergenerational transfer of identity traits in Jewish families (theory of metaclans) in the journal F1000Research. He is the founder of the Am haZikaron Institute, supported by a committee of 55 Nobel Laureates.
“We would see the genetic kinship of the Israeli prose writer’s novel with Kafka’s texts even if the author had not provided the book with an epigraph taken from him.” — Olga Balla, Jewish Panorama, on the novel Testimony (NLO, Russia)
“The novel was written ahead of its time. Its true readers are probably only now appearing.” — Gasan Guseinov, Doctor of Philology, RFI
“To evoke horror through the written word is an exceptionally difficult task, within the power of very few writers. Vidgop accomplishes it virtuosically.” — Alina Chelnokova
“The metaphors of oblivion directly concern the Holocaust — never mentioned in the novel, yet present as a giant figure of silence.” — Evgenia Ritz, Jewish.ru
“Vidgop’s novellas are a captivating blend of satire, absurdism, and existential commentary. They read like a Kafkaesque nightmare intertwined with the grotesque humour of Gogol.” — Lunaris Review, Nigeria
AWARDS
2022 Meridian Editor’s Prize in Prose — annual award from the literary magazine of the
University of Virginia (USA). For the story “Nomads”.
2025 Proverse Poetry Prize — international poetry competition by the publishing house at
the Chinese University of Hong Kong. For the poem “Trees in an alien wood…”
Grant from the President of the State of Israel for writing the book Birdfall (1999).
Zeiti Yerushalaim Prize in the “Jewish Thought” category and medal “For Contribution to the Development of National Spiritual Heritage of the Jewish People” (2007).
Grant from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress for writing The Apocryphal Chronicles.
BOOKS
Birdfall — novellas (Moria, 1999)
A Brief Encyclopedia of Sexuality (Mainstream United, 2013)
Testimony — novel (Mainstream United, 2020; NLO, Moscow, 2023)
The Saga of the Nekumeks — heroic epic (Mainstream United, 2020)
Russia: The Three-Year Pogrom — testimonies (Am haZikaron, 2023)
The Ethnos of Millennia (Am haZikaron, 2023)
The Apocryphal Chronicles (Am haZikaron, 2026)
Five more books are in preparation for publication.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Journals:
International publications (in English)
USA: Meridian, The Los Angeles Review, Pembroke Magazine, EastWest Literary Forum.
UK: Litro.
Ireland: The Galway Review.
Sweden: Two Thirds North.
Croatia: The Mad River.
Spain: Chewers by Masticadores.
Plus journals in Germany, France,
Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, India, Singapore, China, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia, and other countries.
Israel
Dvoetocie • Nota Bene • Neveroyatnye Evrei • Sonar
Russia
Mecenat i Mir • Лиterraтура • Kommentarii
TRANSLATORS
Leo Shtutin (principal translator) — DPhil, Merton College, Oxford. Author of Spatiality and
Subjecthood in Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Maeterlinck and Jarry (Oxford University Press, 2019). Rossica Young Translator’s Prize (2010).
Reilly Costigan-Humes — winner of the 2022 EBRD Literature Prize for the translation of Serhiy
Zhadan’s The Orphanage (Yale University Press).
Nina Kossman — poet, author, translator. NEA fellowship recipient. UNESCO/PEN Short Story
Award. Founding editor, EastWest Literary Forum. Translator of Marina Tsvetaeva (three
volumes).
CONTACT
Press inquiries and business proposals: itzhak8@gmail.com
Website: vidgop.co.il
Facebook: facebook.com/alexanderjonathan.vidgop.3
