News
Omer Friedlander’s debut short story collection, The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, is now available for pre-order!
A brilliant young author’s stunning fiction debut: gorgeously immersive and imaginative stories set in Israel and the Middle East that transcend borders as they render the intimate lives of people striving for connection.
Omer Friedlander’s debut story collection announces the arrival of a natural-born storyteller of immense literary talent. Warm, poignant, delightfully whimsical, The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land brings a reader to the narrow limestone alleyways of Jerusalem, the desolate beauty of the Negev Desert, and the sprawling orange groves of Jaffa. A divorced con artist and his young daughter sell empty bottles of “holy” air to credulous tourists; a Lebanese Scheherazade enchants three young soldiers in a bombed-out Beirut radio station with her nightly tales; a young boy daringly “rooftops” at night, climbing steel cranes in scuffed sneakers even as he reimagines the bravery of a Polish-Jewish dancer during the Holocaust; an Israeli volunteer at a West Bank checkpoint mourns the death of her son, a soldier killed in Gaza.
Omer Friedlander’s short story collection, The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, and his novel, The Glass Golem, will both be published by Random House!
Robin Desser, editor-in-chief and vice-president of Random House, is the editor. Robin has previously acquired and edited work by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Edwidge Danticat, Cheryl Strayed, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai, among others.
Omer Friedlander wins First Place in Moment Magazine’s Karma Foundation Short Fiction Contest for his story ‘The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land,’ judged by Rubi Namdar. Established in 2000, judges for this international annual contest include Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Pinsky, Walter Mosley, Nicole Krauss, Erica Jong, Jonathan Safran Foer, Geraldine Brooks, Andre Aciman and Dara Horn.
Omer Friedlander wins First Place in the Tom Howard / John H. Reid Fiction Contest for his short story ‘The Sand Collector!’
2,495 entries were received from around the world.
"The Sand Collector" depicts the brief but significant romance that develops between two solitary, sensitive teenagers: an Israeli girl and a Bedouin boy who survives by smuggling goods across the border from Egypt and into Gaza. Dennis Norris II, final judge of the 2020 Fiction & Essay Contest, said, "What's masterful in 'The Sand Collector' is the quiet tenderness with which this love story grows. It has the feeling of a secret rendezvous: tension, momentum, and intimacy."
Omer Friedlander is a finalist for the Writers’ Trust of Canada RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers!
Omer Friedlander is a finalist for the Salamander Magazine Fiction Contest judged by Elliot Ackerman!
Elliot Ackerman is the author of Dark at the Crossing, a finalist for the National Book Award
Omer Friedlander wins the Sonora Review Contest judged by Rebecca Makkai!
Rebecca Makkai is the author of The Great Believers, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award
Omer Friedlander is longlisted for the Bath International Short Story Award, 2020
Omer Friedlander is awarded the Starworks Fellowship at NYU’s MFA program in Creative Writing (Fiction), 2020
Omer Friedlander is Shortlisted as First Alternate for P-Town Fellowship, 2020
‘Operation Tamar’ published in The Common, Issue 19, 2020
Update: Issue 19 is the most popular issue of The Common ever with over forty thousand page-views!
Omer Friedlander is a Finalist for the Chicago Tribune’s Nelson Algren Award, 2020
You can read Alte Sachen here
Photo Credit: Yam Traiber
Boston University Blog interview Nelson Algren Award Finalists and Judge
Omer Friedlander:
When I was writing “Alte Sachen,” I was experimenting with my prose. I gave myself more freedom to incorporate different rhythms, which normally I might not use in a story, such as long and detailed lists. The burden of a list of items (the weight of the prose) went well with the subject of the story – two brothers who are junk collectors, whose lives are filled with objects and clutter everyone else thinks is worthless, dealing with the emotional weight of a dead father. I tried to balance some of the heaviness of the lists with shorter, more abrupt and airy sentences, with lightness and humor.
Italo Calvino’s concept of lightness and heaviness is a good way of thinking about this balance. Calvino uses an example from Greek mythology. To cut off the Medusa’s head without being turned to stone, Perseus must be indirect in his gaze. He can only look at the reflection of the Medusa in his shield. Perseus is the hero of reflection, of wind and clouds, while Medusa petrifies, turns everything to stone with her gaze. Anyway, with my writing, I tried to have a bit of Medusa and a bit of Perseus, both clouds and stone.
(Boston University Blog ‘Nelson Algren Award Finalists’)
Photo Credit: Guy Nahum Levy
Omer Friedlander is awarded a fully funded Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, 2020
Omer Friedlander is a Finalist for the Porter House Review Editor’s Prize Judged by Carmen Maria Machado for his story ‘Sister Salamander and the Dybbuk’, 2019
Omer Friedlander receives prestigious Bread Loaf Work/Study Scholarship, 2019
The ‘oldest and most prestigious writing conference in the country’ (New Yorker)
‘One thing is certain’, writes Ru Freeman, ‘they [the Breadloaf waiters] are, each and every one of them, going to become, sooner or later, the steady and assured voices of the American literary tradition.’ (Huffington Post)
Listen to the Bread Loaf Work-Study Scholar Readings (2019)
Omer Friedlander is represented by literary agent Janet Silver!
To read an interview with Janet Silver on Poets and Writers
‘Agents as Editors’ article in Poets and Writers
Omer Friedlander’s short story Jellyfish in Gaza is the Winner of the Baltimore Review Winter Contest, 2020
Omer Friedlander’s short story The Trail is a Finalist for the Lamar York Prize, 2020
Omer Friedlander is awarded a residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, 2020
Omer Friedlander is awarded an Arctic Circle Residency, 2020
Omer Friedlander is awarded a fully funded Standiford Fellowship to Eckerd College Writers’ Conference Writers in Paradise, 2020
Omer Friedlander is a finalist for Lit Mag’s Virginia Woolf Award for Short Fiction
Read ‘An Incomplete List of Things Stolen from my Family’ in Issue #4
Omer Friedlander is a semi-finalist for the American Short(er) Fiction Contest, 2020
Omer Friedlander’s short story ‘The Trail’ made it to the Top Ten in the Columbia Journal Contest, 2020
Omer Friedlander is a semi-finalist for The American Literary Review Contest, 2020
Omer Friedlander is awarded a Blue Mountain Center Residency, 2020
Omer Friedlander is a Scholarship Finalist to the Tin House Winter Workshop session led by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, 2020
Omer Friedlander is accepted to Tin House Summer Workshop, 2019
Omer Friedlander is awarded the Shmuel Traum Literary Translation Prize, 2019
Omer Friedlander is accepted to the Juniper Summer Writing Institute, 2020
Omer Friedlander is accepted to the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop Translation Seminar, 2020
Omer Friedlander is published in The Mays Anthology XXVI guest edited by Alexandra Shulman, Editor in Chief of Vogue. Past Guest Editors include Ted Hughes, Nick Cave, Kate Bush, Zadie Smith, Philip Pullman, Ben Okri, Jeanette Winterson, Colm Toibin and others! (2018)
Omer Friedlander is featured on Erika Dreifus’s Jewish Literary Links
Omer Friedlander is featured on Julie Zuckerman’s ‘Short Story of the Month’
Omer Friedlander is featured on Erika Dreifus’s Machberet blog
Omer Friedlander’s artwork is on the cover of Chagit Kahan’s poetry collection ‘And Then There Were Other Matters’
Omer Friedlander’s artwork is published in Duende
Omer Friedlander’s drawings for a whale project in Bienalle Urbana, Venice
Omer Friedlander is featured in Erika Dreifus’s ‘Jewish Short Stories: Reflections and Recommendations’
Writers’ Trust of Canada Bronwen Wallace Award Finalist Interview with Open Book
New Books Network: Interview ‘The Common’
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land will be published in Dutch by Spectrum. (Available April 14th, 2022)
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land will be published in the United Kingdom by John Murray Press! John Murray first published Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Jane Austen’s Emma, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land receives a starred review from Publishers Weekly!
The New Salon: Writers in Conversation April 14th, 2022 (7pm) – Event with Leigh Newman and Darin Strauss (Zoom link)
Omer Friedlander interview with the Times of Israel
Publishers Weekly: Books of the Week, April 11, 2022
Review: Jewish Book Council
The New York Times Book Review : “This touching debut collection includes the stories of a divorced con artist who sells bottled “holy air” to tourists, a grieving mother who regrets sending her son to die “for a government I hate,” and a Jewish man racked with guilt after betraying his Palestinian friend.”
THE MAN WHO SOLD AIR IN THE HOLY LAND is the Jewish Book Council Book Club Pick for the Month of May! (See: Book Club Kit)
Greenlight Bookstore virtual event 2022 One Story Debutantes (register here!)
One Story Literary Debutante Ball: Omer Friedlander with his mentor, Hannah Tinti
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land chosen as one of the best short story collections of Spring 2022 by Walden Pond Books
Review by The American Jewish Book World
Elvis’s Missing Belt, an essay for the Public Books series 'Public Streets’
Jewish Boston Summer Reading Roundup: includes Omer Friedlander’s ‘The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land’ and Joshua Cohen’s ‘The Netanyahus’
‘The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land' in The Jewish Chronicle’s Best Summer Reads
Book Review: The Free Lance Star: “An astonishing new voice…”
Bibliolifestyle: Fiction Books by Jewish Authors to Read Right Now (includes Omer Friedlander’s The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land and Etgar Keret’s Fly Already)
Review of the Dutch translation of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land in Friesch Dagblad
Review of the Dutch translation of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land by Mappa Libri
The Dutch translation of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land included in the Best Books of the Moment by De Morgen
Omer Friedlander is interviewed on Times Radio (UK) by Libby Purves on First Edition
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land included in Livingston Public Library’s New and Notable Short Story Collections
Buzz Magazine (UK) review of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land: “Dazzling short story collection from Omer Friedlander focuses on Middle East.”
Princeton Public Library recommends The Man Who Who Sold Air in the Holy Land as part of the 2022 adult summer reading program “Oceans of Possibilities: Short Story Collection.”
Beth El Book Club Visiting Author Series: Omer Friedlander’s The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land
Adas Israel: Robin Jacobson, Library and Literary Programs Director, reviews The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land
Omer Friedlander and Charles Baxter at Bread Loaf Writers Conference, 2022
Bread Loaf Fellows, 2022 (from right to left): Robert Fiesler, Julia Phillips, Omer Friedlander. Nawaaz Ahmed, Keith Wilson, Ayse Papatya Bucak, Samantha Silva, Lara Ehrlich, Natasha Rao, Sequoia Nagamatsu, Taymour Soomro, Shara Lessley, Cara Blue Adams, Emma Copley Eisenberg, Rachel Mannheimer, Xhenet Aliu, William Brewer, Kathryn Savage, Chelsea B. DesAutels, Chet’la Sebree
Omer Friedlander participates in a panel for NYU Reads Q&A with Kazuo Ishiguro about his new novel, Klara and the Sun
Omer Friedlander in conversation with Nobel-Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro (holding up The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land)
Omer Friedlander gives a lecture at Wesleyan University’s Contemporary Israeli Voices series
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land reviewed by the Jewish Telegraph (UK)
Omer Friedlander is longlisted for the Granum Foundation Prize
Omer Friedlander talks about The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land at Brookdale Community College
Omer Friedlander is represented by speaking agent Ofer Ziv at the Lion House Agency
Omer Friedlander’s short memoir-piece appears in Granta #161: Sister, Brother, alongside work by Lauren Groff and Emma Cline
Omer Friedlander’s short story, inspired by the painting Comtesse d’Haussonville (1845) by Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres appears in the anthology Regarding Ingres: Fourteen Stories, with an introduction by Darin Strauss
Omer Friedlander teaches at Columbia University’s MFA program in Creative Writing
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land reviewed in Porter House Review
Omer Friedlander is shortlisted for the Granum Foundation Prize
Omer Friedlander is a finalist for the Granum Foundation Prize
Jewish Renaissance (UK) featuring: Omer Friedlander, Joan Silber
The Turkish translation of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land was published by Livera Yayinevi (translator: Nuray Onoglu)
Omer Friedlander podcast interview with Mitzi Rapkin on First Draft (recent guests on the podcast include Ross Gay, Tracy K. Smith, Stacey D’Erasmo, and George Saunders)
“Like David Grossman and Etgar Keret, Friedlander’s stories herald the birth of a true storyteller who will be mentioned frequently in the future.” (Livera Yayinevi, Turkish publisher of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land)
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is longlisted for the Wingate Literary Prize, “British Jewry’s top literary award.” Previous winners include Zadie Smith, W.G. Sebald, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Etgar Keret, Nicole Krauss, and Howard Jacobson.
Omer Friedlander is longlisted for the Wingate Literary Prize, alongside The Books of Jacob by Nobel prize winner Olga Tokarczuk, The Memory Monster by Yishai Sarid, The Only Daughter by A.B. Yehoshua, and others.
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land among the Denver Public Library fiction staff’s favorites of the year 2022
Columbia University MFA program in Creative Writing faculty member Omer Friedlander longlisted for the 2022/23 Wingate Prize
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land chosen as one of Good Housekeeping UK’s Books of the Year
Good Housekeeping UK Books of the Year: “I fell in love with these weird, whacky and ultimately human characters…These tales will stay with me.”
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land chosen as the January 2023 Book Club pick for the Church Times (UK)
Omer Friedlander’s podcast interview for the Church Times Book Club
The Jewish Book Council’s Most Popular Reviews of 2022 includes The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land
Omer Friedlander in conversation with Nuray Önoglu, the translator for the Turkish edition of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land
Omer Friedlander reviews two-time National Jewish Book Award winner Daniel Torday’s The 12th Commandment for the JBC: “tackles difficult questions of faith and fanaticism with humor and nuance.”
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is the winner of the 2023 AJL (Association of Jewish Libraries) Fiction Award
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land chosen as an Honor Book for the Sophie Brody Award by the American Library Association given to works of “astounding achievement in Jewish Literature”
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is shortlisted for the Wingate Prize!
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land is longlisted for the Story Prize!
Wingate Literary Prize ceremony, Sunday March 12, JW3 London
Regarding Ingres anthology of stories in New York Times: Newly Published Visual Books
Omer Friedlander essay ‘Israel with Book in Hand’ featured in Moment Magazine’s Spring 2023 Issue
Nuray Önoglu presents an event about The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land (Turkish translation) in Zorba Bookstore and Cafe, Izmir, Turkey
Joi Mag (Italy): “A delicate and moving discovery.”
Thriller Nord (Italy): “Omer Friedlander demonstrates great stylistic maturity.”
Solo Libri (Italy): “Friedlander’s stories are multi-faceted, complicated, tormented, but also full of hope and humanity.”
“Friedlander’s lyrical and evocative writing is truly superb.” – Liguria Today (Italy)
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land wins the Association of Jewish Libraries Jewish Fiction Award
AJL Conference event with Jewish Fiction Award Honorees Rachel Barenbaum and GennaRose Nethercott
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land included in the Canadian Jewish News roundup of five recent novels that reflect the current state of Israel, alongside David Grossman, A.B. Yehoshua, Meir Shalev, and others.
Omer Friedlander’s (Hebrew) essay published in the Diaspora issue of הו!, edited by the poet and translator Dori Manor. The Diaspora Issue showcases Hebrew Literature in all its geographic diversity, featuring Israeli authors writing from Europe and America, as well as Israel.
The Slovak translation of The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, Muž, ktorý predával vzduch v Svätej zemi was published by Artforum!
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land recommended by Book Riot: Adding Jewish Books to Your Diverse List
Omer Friedlander’s The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land featured in Hadassah Magazine’s Israeli Novelists You Should Know
Omer Friedlander reviews Noa Yedlin’s Stockholm for the Jewish Book Council
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land included in Blackwell’s Reading List to Better Understand Israel and Palestine
Omer Friedlander teaches Advanced Fiction Writing at 92Y
Omer Friedlander teaches Intermediate Fiction Workshop at Columbia University
Book Club Discussion: Omer Friedlander’s L’Uomo Che Vendetta L’aria in Terrasanta (Italian translation)
Radio Regina (Slovakia) features Omer Friedlander’s book Muž, ktorý predával vzduch v Svätej (Slovak translation)
Omer Friedlander interview for Slovakian newspaper Medzi Knihami with Tamara Leontiev
Omer Friedlander reviews Robert Alter’s biography of Amos Oz for Jewish Renaissance
Omer Friedlander’s book features in Forbes Slovakia 31 best books for Christmas: “A fantastic, imaginative, touching and at the same time funny trip to colorful Israel brings hope in a tangle of absurd situations.”
The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land shortlisted for the 2024 William Saroyan International Prize