Synopses & Reviews
“Informed by everything, weighed down by nothing, this is an exquisite work of art.” —
The ScotsmanStrange things are happening in Tel Ilan, a century-old pioneer village. A disgruntled retired politician complains to his daughter that he hears the sound of digging at night. Could it be their tenant, that young Arab? But then the young Arab hears the digging sounds too. Where has the mayors wife gone, vanished without trace, her note saying “Dont worry about me”? Around the village, the veneer of new wealth—gourmet restaurants, art galleries, a winery—barely conceals the scars of war and of past generations: disused air raid shelters, rusting farm tools, and trucks left wherever they stopped. Scenes from Village Life is a memorable novel-in-stories by the inimitable Amos Oz: a brilliant, unsettling glimpse of what goes on beneath the surface of everyday life.
Translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange
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 Review
"Yehoshua's intelligent and refined novel. . . about an aging Israeli director reviewing both his films and his life. . . recalls once again Faulkner's famous dictum that 'the past isn't dead. It isn't even past.'"
—Kirkus (starred review)
"Fascinating...beautiful."-Ha'ir, Israel
"An ambitious, engrossing, playfully testamentary novel" -- Moment
"With beautiful wordsmanship, Yehoshua entangles dignity and humiliation, repugnance and rapture, showing us how difficult they become to distinguish." --Booklist
“In his inimitable style, Yehoshua crafts a powerful allegory of modern Israeli Jewish identity.” - Haaretz "A study of the contested sources of Israeli identity" -- Tablet "Resolutely realistic" -- The Los Angeles Review of Books "Yehoshua delivers a stunning explanation of the ethics of art...A fluid and absorbing novel of ideas; highly recommended." -- Library Journal, starred "An elegant and graceful translation...intelligent and refined." -- Kirkus, starred "Richly plotted" -- The Jewish Week "Yehoshua is one of Israels most highly acclaimed writers, and ‘The Retrospective showcases the author at his finest. He offers a compelling study of character, and a powerful meditation on personal pain and loss, memory, regret, and atonement….a carefully observed portrait of a country in a perpetual state of conflict." -The Jewish Daily Forward "Filled with detailed and realistic descriptions even as myth and memory are explored, The Retrospective is deeply satisfying, rich sto- rytelling from this outstand- ing Israeli writer." -- The Chicago Jewish Star "Achieves an autumnal tone as he ruminates on memorys slippery hold on life and on art." -- The New Yorker
Review
A "thought provoking collection... Filled with tension and allegory, Oz's perceptive tales explore the nuance and alienation of transitioning states."
--Booklist "Finely wrought... Oz writes characterizations that are subtle but surgically precise, rendering this work a powerfully understated treatment of an uneasy Israeli conscience."
-Publishers Weekly, starred "Highly recommended."
-Library Journal, starred UK Praise for SCENES FROM VILLAGE LIFE: "An impressive and very affecting achievement...These stories, in their humanity, may do more for Israel than any of the decisions we have been led to expect of its leaders in the months to come."
-New Statesman "One of the most powerful books you will read about present-day Israel."
-Jewish Chronicle
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.
Synopsis
With great artistry, Yehoshua has 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.
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of A Woman in Jerusalem, a novel about a director, a screenwriter and an actress, old friends and colleagues who meet up for the first time in decades in Santiago de Compostela, and are forced to face the demons that undid them years before, and the ones haunting them now.
Synopsis
Winner, Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
An aging Israeli film director has been invited to the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. When Yair Moses and Ruth, his leading actress and longtime muse, settle into their hotel room, a painting over their bed triggers a distant memory in Moses from one of his early films: a scene that caused a rift with his brilliant but difficult screenwriter—who, as it happens, was once Ruths lover. Upon their return to Israel, Moses decides to travel to the south to look for his elusive former partner and propose a new collaboration. But the screenwriter demands a price for it that will have strange and lasting consequences.
A searching and original novel by one of the worlds most esteemed writers, The Retrospective is a meditation on mortality and intimacy, on the limits of memory and the struggle of artistic creation.
Synopsis
A novel in stories by acclaimed Israeli author Amos Oz.
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
Heirs • 1
Relations • 19
Digging • 39
Lost • 83
Waiting • 109
Strangers • 129
Singing • 153
In a faraway place at another time • 175