On Ruins & Return

Poetry. At times both austere and kaleidoscopic, Rachel Back's third book of poetry draws from what seems to be both prosaically historical and apocalyptically endless (the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) and emerges with something profound, personal, and poetic. Landscapes, ghosts, pasts, and the moon--images rearrange themselves in this hopeful and dazzling book in ways that will leave the reader harrowed and breathless. In ON RUINS AND RETURN, "hallucination and prophecy go by the same name"--Kazim Ali. Poet, translator, and professor of literature, Rachel Tzvia Back was born in America and has lived in Israel for the last 27 years. She teaches at Oranim and Bar-Ilan University. She lives in the Galilee, in the north of Israel.