Search results for ""Author Amos Oz""

Where the Jackals Howl is prize-winning author Amos Oz's first collection of stories. On publication it received immediate critical acclaim and revealed Oz to be a master craftsman probing the emotional depths of his characters. The lives of ordinary Israelis are set against the backdrop of community life in a Kibbutz. The fate of these individuals, their drives, ambitions and idiosyncrasies, are grounded by the physical and social structure of their community as Oz portrays their world as a microcosm of the wider world.

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‘A writer of revelatory genius’ GuardianFollowing the bizarre accidental death of his wife, Israeli secret service agent Yoel Ravid retires to the suburbs with his daughter, mother and mother-in-law. After a lifetime of uncovering other people's secrets he is forced to look back at the lies he has told himself; at the desolate enigma of his wife's life and death; his years of service to the state and the riddle of his daughter's behaviour.‘Humorous, melancholy and touching’ New York Times

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'Evocative and penetrating. Oz handles his narrative with great agility’ Sunday TimesOne day a man may just pick up and walk out. What he leaves behind stays behind. What's left behind has nothing to stare at but his back In the winter of 1965, Yonaton Lifshitz decided to leave the kibbutz on which he was born, and his sterile marriage, to start a new life. But as he engineers his escape, the arrival of Azariah Gitlin, a keen new recruit, brings about a painful reconciliation of their different destinies in a society struggling with changing realities.

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Revelatory talks about art and life with internationally acclaimed Israeli novelist Amos OzIn the last years of his life, the writer Amos Oz talked regularly with Shira Hadad, who worked closely with him as the editor of his final novel, Judas. These candid, uninhibited dialogues show a side of Oz that few ever saw. What Makes an Apple? presents the most revealing of these conversations in English for the first time, painting an illuminating and disarmingly intimate portrait of a towering literary figure.In frank and open exchanges that are by turns buoyant, introspective, and argumentative, Oz explains what impels him to begin a story and shares his routines, habits, and challenges as a writer. He discusses the tectonic changes he experienced in his lifetime in relationships between women and men, and describes how his erotic coming of age shaped him not only as a man but also as an author. Oz reflects on his parents, his formative years on a kibbutz, and how he dealt with and learned from his critics, his students, and his fame. He talks about why there is more humor in his later books and gives his exceptional take on fear of death.Resonating with Oz’s clear, honest, and humorous voice, What Makes an Apple? offers unique insights about Oz’s artistic and personal evolution, and enables readers to explore his work in new ways.

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Eight interlinked family dramas set on an Israeli kibbutz from the masterful storyteller behind A Tale of Love and Darkness‘On the kibbutz it’s hard to know. We’re all supposed to be friends but very few really are’ Ariella, unhappy in love, confides in the woman whose husband she stole. Nahum, a devoted father, can’t find the words to challenge his daughter’s promiscuous lover. The old idealists deplore the apathy of the young, while the young are so used to kibbutz life that they can’t work out if they’re impassioned or indifferent. In this short story collection Amos Oz reveals the secrets and frustrations of the human heart‘Lucid and heartbreaking’ Guardian

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‘A hero of mine, a moral as well as literary giant’ Simon SchamaAmos Oz, the internationally acclaimed author of A Tale of Love and Darkness and Judas, grew up in war-torn Jerusalem, where as a boy he witnessed first-hand the poisonous consequences of fanaticism. In How To Cure a Fanatic Amos Oz analyses the historical roots of violence and confronts truths about the extremism nurtured throughout society. By bringing us face to face with fanaticism he suggests ways in which we can all respond. From the author of A Tale of Love and Darkness and Man Booker International Prize shortlisted Judas.‘He was the conscience of Israel’ Roger Cohen, New York Times

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Discover Amos Oz’s most iconic work in this extraordinary memoir that is at once a great family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation*OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE*‘A hero of mine, a moral as well as literary giant’ Simon SchamaAmos Oz's remarkable, moving story takes us on a seductive journey through his childhood and adolescence, along Jerusalem's war-torn streets in the 1940s and '50s and into a small apartment crowded with books in twelve languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. Caught between them is one small boy with the weight of generations on his shoulders. Oz dives into 120 years of family history and paradox, the saga of a Jewish love-hate affair with Europe that sweeps from Vilna and Odessa, via Poland and Prague, to Israel. Farce and heartbreak, history and humanity make up this story of clashing cultures and lives, of suffering and perseverance, of love and darkness. ‘Oz’s greatest work…not only his autobiography, but in a way the biography of Israel before it was created’ David Grossman, Observer

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‘His parting shot at opposing the storm of fanaticism breaking over our times’ Financial Times Dear Zealots is an essential collection of three essays written out of a sense of urgency, concern, and a belief that a better future is still possible. It touches on the universal nature of fanaticism and its possible cures; the Jewish roots of humanism and the need for a secular pride in Israel; and the geopolitical standing of Israel in the wider Middle East and internationally. Amos Oz boldly puts forward his case for a two-state solution in what he calls ‘a question of life and death for the State of Israel’. Wise, provocative, moving and inspiring, these essays illuminate the argument over Israeli, Jewish and human existence, shedding a clear and surprising light on vital political and historical issues, and daring to offer new ways out of a reality that appears to be closed down.'Concise, evocative... a brilliant book of thoughts and ideas' David Grossman

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A celebrated novelist and an acclaimed historian of ideas, father and daughter, unravel the chain of words at the core of Jewish life, history, and culture Why are words so important to so many Jews? Novelist Amos Oz and historian Fania Oz-Salzberger roam the gamut of Jewish history to explain the integral relationship of Jews and words. Through a blend of storytelling and scholarship, conversation and argument, father and daughter tell the tales behind Judaism’s most enduring names, adages, disputes, texts, and quips. These words, they argue, compose the chain connecting Abraham with the Jews of every subsequent generation. Framing the discussion within such topics as continuity, women, timelessness, and individualism, Oz and Oz-Salzberger deftly engage Jewish personalities across the ages, from the unnamed, possibly female author of the Song of Songs through obscure Talmudists to contemporary writers. They suggest that Jewish continuity, even Jewish uniqueness, depends not on central places, monuments, heroic personalities, or rituals but rather on written words and an ongoing debate between the generations. Full of learning, lyricism, and humor, Jews and Words offers an extraordinary tour of the words at the heart of Jewish culture and extends a hand to the reader, any reader, to join the conversation.

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Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this bestselling and critically acclaimed work is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history. It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the forties and fifties, 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 mother's suicide when he was twelve years old. The story of a man who leaves the constraints of his family and its community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen 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.

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The Israeli master’s exceptional final novelSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2017 Shmuel – a young, idealistic student – has abandoned his studies in Jerusalem, taking a live-in job as a companion to a cantankerous old man. But Shmuel quickly becomes obsessed with the taciturn Atalia, a woman of enchanting beauty, who also lives in the house. As the household’s tangled, tragic past becomes apparent, so too does story behind the birth of the state of Israel. Journeying back into the deep past, Judas is a love story like no other by a master storyteller at the height of his powers.‘A hero of mine, a moral as well as literary giant’ Simon Schama‘One of his boldest works of all’ Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times‘Amos Oz…brought so much beauty, so much love, and a vision of peace to our lives. Please hold him in your hearts and read his books’ Natalie PortmanJudas is the first novel selected for the Amos Oz reading circle established by Natalie Portman.

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A teenage son shoots himself under his parents' bed. They sleep that night unaware he is lying dead beneath them.A stranger turns up at a man's door to persude him that they must get rid of his ageing mother in order to sell the house.An old man grumbles to his daughter about the unexplained digging and banging he hears under the house at night. As each story unfolds, Amos Oz, builds a portrait of a village in Israel. It is a surreal and unsettling place. Each villager is searching for something, and behind each episode is another, hidden story. In this powerful, hynotic work Amos Oz peers into the darkness of our lives and gives us a glimpse of what goes on beneath the surface of everyday existence.By the winner of the 2013 Franz Kafka Prize, previous winners of which include Philip Roth, Ivan Klima, Elfriede Jelinek, Harold Pinter and John Banville.

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‘One of the greatest prose writers in contemporary fiction’ The TimesIn the last years of British rule in Jerusalem, a lonely, bookish Israeli boy befriends a British soldier in this tale of friendship in the face of enmity.Jerusalem 1947. British soldiers patrol the streets, and bullets and bombs are a nightly occurrence. Caught up in the fervour and unrest against the occupying forces,12-year old Proffy dreams of being an underground fighter. But some of his dreams are less heroic. Temptation lurks everywhere for the youth who wants to be a man – and betrayal not far behind.

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