For the first time, there is a female majority in prose and poetry books in Israel: 52% of prose and 54% of poetry in Israel were written in 2021 by women, while men retained a majority only in the short story genre (55%).
For comparison, 58% of the authors of original books in Israel in 2017 were men.
These data emerge from the Israel Publishers' Report for 2021, which is published ahead of Book Week. The report is published by the National Library on the basis of books sent to it under the Mandatory Copies Law, which requires anyone who publishes more than 50 copies to the National Library.
However, since there are independent publishers who do not send copies to her, the number of books may be even higher.
According to the report, children's books in Israel were also mostly written by women (64%) in the reporting year. Most of them were also autobiographies of men about themselves (67%), and in fact the entire genre of non-fiction books retained an overwhelming majority of writers: in the humanities and social sciences (75%), in the history of Israel (78%) and in Jewish studies (94%).
More than "Corona Year"
7,344 printed books and 982 digital books were published in 2021 - more than in 2020 ("Corona Year"), but less than the peaks of 2018 and 2019, when more than 8,000 books were published per year.
The corona has also become a major issue for quite a few books: 74 books published in 2021 dealt with the plague.
Printed books and 982 digital books were published in 2021, Photo: GettyImages
In the year under review, the increase in the rate of prose and poetry books also continued: 1,874 books published in this genre, of which 1,384 original books written in Hebrew, passed the peak of 2020, which stood at 1,813 books.
Divided by genres, the number of prose books published increased (64%) compared to poetry books (30%) and short stories (6%).
The data also indicate an increase in the number of biographies and autobiographies: in 2021, 447 books of this genre were published - 50% more than in the last five years - most of them were autobiographies (47%), family books (9%) and biographies of relatives (18%). And only 17% had biographies of public figures.
Fewer books in Arabic
On the other hand, there was a decrease in the number of books published in Arabic: in 2021, only 165 books were accepted in the National Library in this language, compared to 248 books in 2018, and the change may be due to the authors preferring to publish their books online.
In this context, it is possible to note the increase in the number of digital books: 982 digital books were received in 2021 at the National Library, compared with 799 in the previous year.
The main topics the books dealt with: Judaism (33%), history and society (23%), prose and poetry (14%) and children and youth (9%).
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