From “The Kumkum” to Erich Maria Remarque: a year in the life of Avigdor Hameiri

ABSTRACT Only two weeks separated between the publication of the Hebrew translation of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, the great First World War novel, written by a veteran soldier – and the publication of Avigdor Hameiri’s own war memoir, The Great Madness, the first best-seller of the Hebrew literature in Palestine. The publication of Hameiri’s magnum opus came at the end of 1929, the year in which the Jewish author, poet and former soldier closed the curtains on the Kumkum, the first ever Hebrew satirical theatre in Palestine.