photo: Ernest Aranov
Roy Chen is a writer, playwright and translator working across languages, stages and literary traditions. He is based in Tel Aviv and works regularly with theatres and publishers in Europe.
Since 2017 he has been the in-house playwright of Gesher Theater in Tel-Aviv, where his plays, translations and adaptations are produced.
Great uproar, his latest novel, was described as prophetic for its final chapter, which imagines the outbreak of war. The novel has recently appeared in Italian and Russian translation.
Souls, his previous novel, has been translated into Italian (Anime, Giuntina, 2022), Russian (Души, Phantom Press, 2021), and Ukrainian (Душі, Dukh i Litera, 2025). An English translation has also recently been completed.
Recent productions include: Chi Come Me at Teatro Franco Parenti in Milan, Floating Island in Teatr na Podoli in Kiev, The Dybbuk at Arlekin Players Theater, Boston, Souls in Gesher Theater, Tel-Aviv, Zirkus Kafka in Schauspiel Frankfurt.
His plays Floating Island, In the Tunnel, Anybody Here, The Odyssey and others are running for years and were presented on international tours (NYC, Toronto, Milan, Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, Budapest, Beijing etc).
He is self-taught and has studied English, Russian, French and Italian. He has translated classic Russian fiction, including Pushkin, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, as well as more than fifty plays.
He is the recipient of many awards including:
ADEI Wizo prize for the novel Great Uproar (Italy, 2026)
Elliot Norton prize for Outstanding Play for The Dybbuk (Boston, 2025)
S.Y. Agnon Prize for Literature (2023)
Rosenblum Performing Arts prize by the city of Tel Aviv (2022)
The Levi Eshkol prize for Hebrew Literary Works (2022)
Yitzhak Navon prize for the Preservation of Israeli Cultures. (2017)