Dan Tsalka was born in 1936 in
Warsaw. In World War II his family fled to the
Soviet Union, where they lived in
Siberia and then
Kazakhstan. At the close of the war, when he was ten, he returned with his family to Poland, to the city of
Wrocław. He studied humanities at the city's university, engaging in boxing, an activity that appeared later in the novel
Gloves. In 1957 he immigrated to
Israel in the "
Gomułka Aliyah". He changed his name from Mietek to Dan, a name his sister suggested during their stay in an
immigrant absorption camp (
maabara) in
Yavne. After studying
Hebrew at Kibbutz
Hatzor, he enlisted in the
Israel Defense Forces and served in the armored corps. After his discharge he studied philosophy and history at
Tel-Aviv University. He continued his studies in France, also residing for a time in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Italy. In 1967 he published his first novel
Dr. Barkel. He was the editor of
Masa, the literary supplement of the newspaper
Lemerkhav, and engaged in additional editing and translation. In 2000 he made a trip to Morocco with a friend, as he described in the book
Morocco: Travel Notes. He lived in
Tel Aviv with his wife Aviva. He died on June 15, 2005, at the age of 69 from cancer. ==Awards==