People
A father in science, a son in literature
David Shamis and Moris Simashko represent different professional histories within one family.
Published
This is a translation. The original is Русский. Language review: not performed by a native speaker.
Moris Simashko was born with the surname Shamis. His father, the microbiologist David Lazarevich Shamis, founded the Institute of Microbiology and Virology of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR in Alma-Ata and became its first director. Moris chose a pen name related to his former surname and wrote prose about the history of Central Asia.
After moving to Alma-Ata, Simashko worked at the magazine “Prostor” and the Zhazushy publishing house. He translated from Kazakh. In 1986, he received the Abai Prize for his Russian translation of Ilyas Yesenberlin’s trilogy “The Nomads”.
In 1999, Simashko moved to Israel to join his daughter. He died in Tel Aviv in 2000 and is buried in Netanya.