Synopses & Reviews
Praise for A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS:"Every event, every factual detail, every discovery opens myriad doors to unexpected revelations...It is impossible to give a full account of this book's riches." --The Washington Post Book World
"[A] consistently gracious and compassionate meditation on the birth and consciousness of a writer. Revealed here is an exceptionally intimate and emotional archaeology, which provides astonishing truths about the origins of art itself."-- The Miami Herald
"A powerful story of the making of a writer
Oz's panoramic memoir enhances the history of literature and of Israel, and the literature of examined lives." --Booklist (starred)
Praise for THE SAME SEA:
"A prose poem . . . at once melancholic and sensual." --The New Yorker
"Impressive
[l]iterature that is both spiritually moving and secularly provocative."--The Los Angeles Times Book Review
"[L]ovely, lyrical territory
a reminder of the great things a novel can do. How it can cast us into a dream state, put us into contact with our beloved dead and help us recognize the hidden connections among all people and all things." --Chicago Tribune
"At once spare and lushly experimental, an unusual mixture of hard, precise prose that drives the story forward and often lyrical, evocative verse that bathes us in mental glow of each of the characters." --The Nation
Review
"From the prodigious Oz comes a delightfully elusive if slight story of imagination, talent and the transitory nature of fame...Stamped with Oz's charm and graceful skill in creating rich characters, this is a must for any fan."
-Publishers Weekly
"Israeli novelist Amos Oz performs an exquisite balancing act in his taut, evocative novel Rhyming Life & Death, which immerses readers in the vagaries of the creative process, never letting us forget that theres an author pulling the strings, making the decisions, however arbitrary, and making us complicit in the illusion that these words on the page somehow represent lives lived, destinies fulfilled and desires thwarted...[A] spellbinding fable."
-Kirkus Reviews, UpFront Review
"Hilarious and profound, Ozs tale of a mischievous taleteller ponders the eroticism of stories and the mysterious ways language and literature bridge the divide between inner and outer worlds; and it helps us make some sense, however gossamer, of life and death. A slyly philosophical novel."
-Donna Seaman, Booklist"Beguiling...funny and philosophical...a surprisingly playful departure for Oz." - Financial Times "The book is a meditation on the art of writing, the relationship between literature and life, between life and death, and also about the nature and significance of literary fame....the work of a master...A book you are likely to return to." - The Scotsman "...it is fascinating to witness this assured and experienced writer address such basic novelistic concerns as life and death, love and sex, language and silence, along a spectrum from cynicism, through humour to candour." - Sunday Telegraphy "...a deft way with quirky deail, a master class in interlocking character sketches, and a fable on themes of sex, death and writing ;pitched somewhere between the fictional universes of JM Coetzee and Milan Kundera." - The Guardian "Delectable...Amos Oz's Rhyming Life and Death is a midsummer night's dream."
- Buffalo News "...a juicily sadistic fable of creation." - Slate
Synopsis
In this deft, masterly book, Amos Oz turns his attention away from his familythe subject of the internationally acclaimed A Tale of Love and Darknessand toward his profession, writing. The plot: eight hours in the life of an author. The setting: Tel Aviv, a stifling, hot night. A literary celebrity is giving a reading from his new book. And as his attention wanders, he begins to invent lives for the strangers he sees around him: here, a self-styled cultural guru, Yakir Bar-Orian Zhitomirski; there, a love-starved professional reader, Rochele Reznik; to say nothing of Ricky the waitress, the real object of his desire. One life story builds on another, and the author finds himself unexpectedly involved with his creations . . .
Synopsis
An ingenious, witty, behind-the-scenes novel about eight hours in the life of an author.
A literary celebrity is in Tel Aviv on a stifling hot night to give a reading from his new book.While the obligatory inane questions ("Why do you write? What is it like to be famous? Do you write with a pen or on a computer?) are being asked and answered, his attention wanders and he begins to invent lives for the strangers he sees around him. Among them are Yakir Bar-Orian Zhitomirski, a self-styled literary guru; Tsefania Beit-Halachmi, a poet (whose work provides the novels title); and Rochele Reznik, a professional reader, with whom the Author has a brief but steamy sexual skirmish; to say nothing of Ricky the waitress, the real object of his desire. One life story builds on another—and the author finds himself unexpectedly involved with his creations.
About the Author
Amos Oz was born in Jerusalem in 1939. He is the author of fourteen novels and collections of short fiction, and numerous works of nonfiction. His acclaimed memoir
A Tale of Love and Darkness was an international bestseller and recipient of the prestigious Goethe prize, as well as the National Jewish Book Award.
Scenes from Village Life, a
New York Times Notable Book, was awarded the Prix Méditerranée Étranger in 2010. He lives in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Nicholas de Lange is a professor at the University of Cambridge and a renowned translator. He has translated Amos Ozs work since the 1960s.