Prose

“Brave blue mother”, Published in Israel, 2000

“Brave Blue Mother” is a diary-novel, daring in it’s theme and articulated in it’s messages.
The book follows the thoughts and emotions of a mother, whose eldest boy took his own life in a terrible suicide.
The book is a detailed documentation, first hand – told by the mother – of the first 30 mourning days of the son’s short life.
The elements of grief and failure also stand at the core of the intensive journey the mother is going through to find her self and the real and phony meanings of her life so far.

 

“Brave Blue Mother” creates a unique brave bridge to the unknown world of an Israeli family, facing the worst – when her son dies – and not in an act of bravery. By the accepted norms in our society, a society which by the author of the book is militantic by it’s essence.
The author leads the grieving mother through a personal journey, and creates a new way of understanding and accepting all those desparate young men, who were in their death, as well as in their life, outcasts.

 

Ori Raz, born 1971, published so far a poem book (“To See Beyond The Light”) and participated in 10 plastic arts exhibitions, 3 of which, as an only performer. This is his first prose book.

 

“…I remember my friend Nirit, which was in the army with me. One time, when she went for patrol in the south border, she stepped on a land mine and they had to cut off her leg in order to save her life. Ever since, when I visited her she would look at me with tears shiny eyes and telling me: I know they have cut off my leg, but I can still feel it. I feel the tip of my toes. I can feel it moving there. And I would say to her: This feeling will pass, the mind does not understand the fact that the leg is missing. And today, Zohar, I am like her .The most important limb of my body has been cut off. Gone.
You are gone.
And I can still feel you. And hear you. And smell you. And see you. And touch you.”

 

“…I am so confused, Zohar. Contradict emotions flow inside me in a chaos. Want to live. Want to die. I am alive, but dead. I want to love, but hate. Want to forget, but remember. Want to get myself together, but I’m falling apart. Afraid of confusion. Confused of fear.”

Poems

“To see beyond the light”, Published in Israel, 1994