Natan Yonatan was born in September 1923 in Kiev, Ukraine. His parents immigrated to Eretz Israel/Palestine when he was just two years old. In 1935, his family joined the early settlers of the agricultural village Moshav Maas near Petach Tikvah. As a member of the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, he joined Kibbutz Sarid in the Jezreel Valley in 1945 where he remained a member for forty-six years, until 1991.

Natan Yonatan was a graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Oxford University in England. He gained a masters degree in Literature, Hebrew Literature and Comparative Literature.

Yonatan conducted lectures in Jewish communities and at universities worldwide. He was a member of the delegations of Israeli writers to many international conferences and conventions. In 1995, he was unanimously elected president of the Hebrew writers Association.

Natan Yonatan has published some thirty books, and was the recipient of all the major literary prizes awarded by Israel. He passed away at the age of eighty.