Amos Oz
Amos Oz
Amos Ozis an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. He is regarded as Israel's most famous living author...
NationalityIsraeli
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth4 May 1939
CountryIsrael
literature not-sure
I'm not sure I'm happy with words such as "task" or "role" when they are attached to literature.
literature
Literature is about telling stories.
literature
You know, gynecology has a role; sex is a gift. And literature is not about sending messages.
fairytale old-testament storytelling
The Old Testament is full of poetry, prophecies, chronicles, documentations, storytelling, fairytales.
fanaticism far headlines militancy novel people precisely
But The Same Sea is set precisely in this Israel, which never makes it to the news headlines anywhere. It is a novel about everyday people far removed from fundamentalism, fanaticism nationalism, or militancy of any sort.
democracy novel
All of my novels are democracies.
live-life exclamation-points living-my-life
Fundamentalist s live life with an exclamation point. I prefer to live my life with a question mark.
tragedy definitions clash
Well, my definition of a tragedy is a clash between right and right.
wall doors sitting
Actually, who hasn't been through the ghastly experience of sitting in front of a blank page, with its toothless mouth grinning at you: Go ahead, let's see you lay a finger on me? A blank page is actually a whitewashed wall with no door and no window. Beginning to tell a story is like making a pass at a total stranger in a restaurant.
loneliness self hands
… that sour blend of loneliness and lust for recognition, shyness and extravagance, deep insecurity and self-intoxicated egomania, that drives poets and writers out of their rooms to seek each other out, to rub shoulders with one another, bully, joke, condescend, feel each other, lay a hand on a shoulder or an arm round a waist, to chat and argue with little nudges, to spy a little, sniff out what is cooking in other pots, flatter, disagree, collude, be right, take offence, apologise, make amends, avoid each other, and seek each other’s company again.
falling-in-love jealous volcanoes
I wrote a novel about Israelis who live their own lives on the slope of a volcano. Near a volcano one still falls in love, one still gets jealous, one still wants a promotion, one still gossips.
party gaps labor
The actual gap between Labor, Likud and the new central party is microscopic.
tiny born lows
I was born and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor apartment.
traitor ifs diets
If you change your diet, someone will call you a traitor.