Emanuel Lottem (1944-2024)

Israeli editor and translator Emanuel Lottem, 79, died January 7, 2024.

Emanual Lottem obtained a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tel Aviv; a master’s from the London School of Oriental and African Studies and a PhD from the London School of Economics. He initially worked as a university lecturer, then entered the diplomatic service, serving as a consul in New York and as a special adviser in the Israeli consulate in South Africa. He began working as a translator and editor in 1976, specialising in science fiction, in which role he has had an enormous and enduring influence on generations of Israeli writers and fans.

He was part of the group putting out the influential magazine Fantasia 2000 (1978-1984), in which his only short story was published. As one of the very few editors of science fiction in Israel he helped usher in a range of new translations of numerous classics. His Dune (1975) is widely considered better than the English original by Israeli fans; notoriously, he then skipped translating the next three books in the Dune sequence for being “too boring”, in his words. He resumed the series with Heretics of Dune. His revised translation of The Lord of the Rings, with its inventive linguistics, has long divided fans.

Lottem picked the books, translated them and introduced them to successive generations. Amongst the 400 or so books he translated in his lifetime were Ringworld, The Stars My Destination and The Left Hand of Darkness, while popular science titles included A Brief History of Time and The Selfish Gene. In the 1990s he was instrumental in establishing the Israeli Society of Science Fiction and Fantasy, becoming its first chair.

Years later he took great delight taking his then-young granddaughter to the new conventions that sprung up as a result of his efforts. He was celebrated in the novel A Fictional Murder (2009) by Lavie Tidhar and Nir Yaniv, as “Re’uel Rotem”, a seemingly mild-mannered editor and translator driven mad by fandom and the hounding of the “Tolkienistas” to commit a series of murders; various young Israeli SF authors are gleefully and gruesomely vanquished. He was, by all accounts, delighted by this portrayal. He co-edited, with Sheldon Teitelbaum, English-language anthology Zion’s Fiction: A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature (2018).

Lottem leaves behind a wife, children and grandchildren. His loss is widely felt.

-Lavie Tidhar