Synopses & Reviews
Winner, National Jewish Book Award
“[A] gorgeous, rueful collection . . . that lays bare the deepest human longings.” — Chicago Tribune
In Between Friends, Amos Oz returns to the kibbutz of the late 1950s, the time and place where his writing began. These eight interconnected stories, set in the fictitious Kibbutz Yekhat, draw masterly profiles of idealistic men and women enduring personal hardships in the shadow of one of the greatest collective dreams of the twentieth century. A devoted father who fails to challenge his daughters lover, an old friend, a man his own age; an elderly gardener who carries on his shoulders the sorrows of the world; a woman writing perversely poignant letters to her husbands mistress. Each of these stories is a luminous human and literary study; together they offer an eloquent portrait of an idea, and of a charged and fascinating epoch. Amos Oz at home. And at his best.
“Lucid and heartbreaking.” — Guardian (UK)
“All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail.” — Mail on Sunday (UK)
Review
Winner, National Jewish Book Award for Fiction"Oz traces the emotional terrain of kibbutz life in this. . . gorgeous, rueful collection of eight linked stories about life in fictional Kibbutz Yekhat. . . Written in deliberately unadorned prose (beautifully translated by Sondra Silverston), [Between Friends] lays bare the deepest human longings."
—Chicago Tribune
"The mind is a place Oz explores masterfully in all its contradiction, texture and heartache. Between Friends paints the daily lives behind utopian dreams, fully realized."
—New York Daily News
"[A] deeply affecting chamber piece [that] draws on…the contradictory urges that lie at the heart of Israels psyche."
—Ben Lawrence, Telegraph (UK)
"Oz lifts the veil on kibbutz existence without palaver. His pin-point descriptions are pared to perfection… His people twitch with life."
—Scotsman (UK)
"Lucid and heartbreaking… Oz explores the always uncertain relationships between men and women, parents and children, friends and enemies, in a clear, clipped language perfectly suited to the laconic tone of the narrative and impeccably rendered into English by Sondra Silverston"
—Alberto Manguel, Guardian (UK)
"A collection of stories….that boasts the sense, scope and unity of a novel…Breathtaking."
—Irish Examiner (Ireland)
"A complex and melancholic vision of people struggling to transcend their individuality for the sake of mundanely idealistic goals."
—Times Literary Supplement (UK)
"All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail."
—Mail on Sunday (UK)
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
Review
"Bringing the same intensity of engagement and passion for poetic expression to fiction and nonfiction alike, [Oz] articulates the psychological complexity beneath the armor of Israel's bellicose politics and the tragedy of its geopolitical predicament. This well-organized volume reaches back to the 1960s, mixes genres, and showcases Oz's beautifully mythic prose...Timely and illuminating."-Donna Seaman, Booklist "[T]his literary album contains striking snapshots by a gifted writer with a capacious heart and humane philosophy."-Kirkus Reviews
Review
" This well-organized volume reaches back to the 1960s, mixes genres, and showcases Ozs beautifully mythic prose...Fluent in social matters, Oz finds meaning in the lives of individuals, each a cosmos of pain and love. Timely and illuminating."
Review
"...this literary album contains striking snapshots by a gifted writer with a capacious heart and humane philosophy."
Review
"...all [the selections] are representative of an intensely poetic writer who is concerned with contemporary life in a conflicted Israel. Oz's subjects come out of his experiences of kibbutz living, war, and the struggles of individuals who are in conflict with Israeli society's ideals. For readers wanting to sample the range of this important international writer, this collection will serve as a fine introduction."
Review
"If you don't know Oz, then start right here and become hooked."
Review
PRAISE FOR AMOS OZ
"A commanding artist who ranks with the most important writers of our time."-Cynthia Ozick
PRAISE FOR THE SAME SEA
"Impressive and moving . . . Oz tells the story of ordinary people in an extraordinary manner . . . Literature that is both spiritually moving and secularly provocative."-Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
"[An] indelible memoir"
Review
"Touching, haunting, wrenching, amusing, and sometimes downright hilarious...the best book Oz has ever written"
Review
PRAISE FOR
A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS"Detailed and beautiful . . . As he writes about himself and his family, Oz is also writing part of the history of the Jews . . . We are in the hands here of a capable, practiced seducer."--Los Angeles Times
"This lyrical saga . . . succeeds both as a revelatory tale of the artist as young man and a gripping portrait of the young Jewish state itself."--The Miami Herald
Review
PRAISE FOR
A WOMAN IN JERUSALEM "[An] astonishing new novel . . . Like sacred music, the deepest chords resound."John Leonard,
Harper's Magazine "[A] masterpiece, a compact, strange work of Chekhovian grace, grief, wit and compassion."Warren Bass,
The Washington Post Book World Synopsis
A provocative new story collection from the internationally celebrated author of A Tale of Love and Darkness
Synopsis
Winner, National Jewish Book Award
A] gorgeous, rueful collection . . . that lays bare the deepest human longings. Chicago Tribune
In Between Friends, Amos Oz returns to the kibbutz of the late 1950s, the time and place where his writing began. These eight interconnected stories, set in the fictitious Kibbutz Yekhat, draw masterly profiles of idealistic men and women enduring personal hardships in the shadow of one of the greatest collective dreams of the twentieth century. A devoted father who fails to challenge his daughter s lover, an old friend, a man his own age; an elderly gardener who carries on his shoulders the sorrows of the world; a woman writing perversely poignant letters to her husband s mistress. Each of these stories is a luminous human and literary study; together they offer an eloquent portrait of an idea, and of a charged and fascinating epoch. Amos Oz at home. And at his best.
Lucid and heartbreaking. Guardian (UK)
All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail. Mail on Sunday (UK)"
Synopsis
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award: A "gorgeous, rueful collection of eight linked stories" capturing the collective dreams of Israel in the 1950s (Chicago Tribune).
These eight interconnected stories, set in the fictitious Kibbutz Yekhat, draw masterful profiles of idealistic men and women enduring personal hardships in the shadow of one of the greatest collective dreams of the twentieth century. A devoted father who fails to challenge his daughter's lover, an old friend, a man his own age; an elderly gardener who carries on his shoulders the sorrows of the world; a woman writing perversely poignant letters to her husband's mistress.
Each of these stories is a luminous human and literary study; together they offer an eloquent portrait of an idea, and of a charged and fascinating epoch. Award-winning writer Amos Oz, who spent three decades living on a kibbutz, is at home and at his best in this "lucid and heartbreaking" award-winning collection (The Guardian).
"Oz lifts the veil on kibbutz existence without palaver. His pinpoint descriptions are pared to perfection . . . His people twitch with life." --The Scotsman
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.
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
A rich and varied selection of writings from the early sixties to the present by Amos Oz, one of Israels leading novelists, public intellectuals, and political activists.
The Reader features extensive excerpts from the entire range of Oz's career, loosely grouped into four themes which Oz's work has consistently reflected: the kibbutz, the city of Jerusalem, the idea of "promised land", and his own life story. Editor Nitza ben-Dov has included extracts from a career-spanning range of Oz's novels, among them WHERE THE JACKALS HOWL, ELSEWHERE PERHAPS, A PERFECT PEACE, MY MICHAEL, CRUSADE, FIMA, BLACK BOX, and TO KNOW A WOMAN. Nonfiction is represented by selections from UNDER THIS BLAZING LIGHT, THE SLOPES OF LEBANON, IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL, and Ozs recent masterpiece, A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS. Brought together thus, we can see how firmly grounded all of his writing is in the Israeli reality he knows so intimately and about which he feels so passionately the Jerusalem of his childhood, the kibbutz where he lived and worked for many years, the landscape and politics of the land of Israel.
THE AMOS OZ READER is an invaluable introduction to the work of one of the most highly regarded writers in the world today.
Synopsis
The
Reader draws on Ozs entire body of work, loosely grouped into four themes: the kibbutz, the city of Jerusalem, the idea of a "promised land," and his own life story. Included are excerpts from his celebrated novels, among them
Where the Jackals Howl, A Perfect Peace, My Michael, Fima, Black Box, and
To Know a Woman. Nonfiction is represented by selections from
Under This Blazing Light, The Slopes of Lebanon, In the Land of Israel, and Ozs masterpiece,
A Tale of Love and Darkness. Robert Alter, a noted Hebrew scholar and translator, has provided an illuminating introduction.
Synopsis
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award International Bestseller "[An] ingenious work that circles around the rise of a state, the tragic destiny of a mother, a boys creation of a new self." — The New Yorker A family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. A Tale of Love and Darkness is the story of a boy who grows up in war-torn Jerusalem, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been changed forever by his mothers suicide. The story of a man who leaves the constraints of his family and community to join a kibbutz, change his name, marry, have children. The story of a writer who becomes an active participant in the political life of his nation. "One of the most enchanting and deeply satisfying books that I have read in many years." — New Republic
Synopsis
A couple, long married, are spending an unaccustomed week apart. Ya'ari, an engineer, is busy juggling the day-to-day needs of his elderly father, his children, and his grandchildren. His wife, Daniela, flies from Tel Aviv to East Africa to mourn the death of her older sister. There she confronts her anguished brother-in-law, Yirmiyahu, whose soldier son was killed six years earlier in the West Bank by friendly fire." Yirmiyahu is now managing a team of African researchers digging for the bones of mans primate ancestors as he desperately strives to detach himself from every shred of his identity, Jewish and Israeli.
With great artistry, A. B. Yehoshua has once again written a rich, compassionate, rewarding novel in which sharply rendered details of modern Israeli life and age-old mysteries of human existence echo one another in complex and surprising ways.
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.
Table of Contents
Introductionby Robert Alter
The Kibbutz "an exemplary non-failure"
The Kibbutz at the Present Time ( from Under This Blazing Light-- an essay)/ 7-11
Where the Jackals Howl (from Where the Jackals Howl-- a story)/ 12-29
The Way of the Wind (from Where the Jackals Howl-- a story) 30-51
An Extended Family (from Elsewhere, Perhaps)/ 52-79
Secret Adaptability (from A Perfect Peace)/ 95-125
Jerusalem An Alien City
An Alien City (from Under This Blazing Light -- an essay)/ 129-135
It's Cold in this Jerusalem of Yours (from My Michael)/ 136-158
Whoever Moves toward the Light Moves toward the Holy City (from Crusade)/ 176-215
Life Nowadays is like a Stupid Party (from The Hill of Evil Counsel --a novella)/232-258
A City where All Men are Half Prophet, Half Prime Minister (from Fima)/ 290-326
In the Promised Land
The Meaning of Homeland (from Under This Blazing Light -- an essay)/ 351-373
Thank God for His Daily Blessing (from In the Land of Israel -- epilogue)/ 374-394
Yours with Great Respect and in Jewish Solidarity (from Black Box)/ 395-429
And So Yoel Ravid Began to Give In (from To Know a Woman)/ 436-465
Hebrew Melodies (from The Slopes of Lebanon -- prologue)/ 494-516
In an Autobiographical Vein
An autobiographical note (from Under This Blazing Light an essay)/ 519-524
Father and Son in a Search for Love (from The Same Sea) 525-527
My Mother was Thirty-Eight when She Died (from A Tale of Love and Darkness)/ 528-541
Imagining the Other is a Deep and Subtle Human Pleasure (Goethe Prize Speech)