Agnon, << AHG non, >> Shmuel Yosef (1888-1970), was an Israeli author. He shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in literature with German-born author Nelly Sachs.
Agnon wrote novels and short stories about Jewish life in Europe and Israel. His fiction has profound mystical and psychological overtones, combining social satire with religious themes. Agnon, who wrote in Hebrew, used language and storytelling techniques drawn from Jewish religious texts and folk literature.
Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes was born on July 17, 1888, in eastern Galicia, now part of Ukraine. He first went to Palestine in 1907 and later changed his name to Agnon, which he took from the title of his first published story, “Agunot” (“Deserted Wives,” 1909). Agnon’s major novels include The Bridal Canopy (1931), A Simple Story (1935), A Guest for the Night (1937), and Yesteryear (1945). Some of the author’s short stories were collected in Twenty-One Stories (1970). He died on Feb. 17, 1970.
