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
small-town novel exception
The place of my novels is Israel, almost without exception. All of them take place in Israel - in Jerusalem, in the desert, in the kibbutz, in small towns, in villages.
fanaticism
I know one or two things about fanaticism and death, and I reject them.
inspired hebrew language
Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages.
hebrew unthinkable
There are certain concepts, which exist in english, and are unthinkable, untranslatable into Hebrew and vice versa.
being-real birth
No human being really begins on the day which appears in the passport as their date of birth. We all begin much much much earlier.
integrity compromise idealism
The opposite of compromise is not integrity. The opposite of compromise is not idealism. The opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.
black-and-white world palestine
In my essays and articles I have been saying again and again that the case of Israel and Palestine, the case of Israel and the Arab world, and indeed the case of Israel and Europe, is not black and white. It's not a western movie.
parent legacy culture
Of course, we carry inside of ourselves our parents. Even when they are dead, we carry them inside ourselves. And they are carrying inside themselves their dead parents and so on and so forth. There is a legacy of language and culture and religion.
simple strive settlement
I would not waste five years of my life in order to send to the Israeli readers a simple message such as, "Let us change a policy or stop the settlements," Or, "Let us strive for peace." This is not what it is about.
neighbor
I want Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and in peace with itself.
different
Things can be translated, but they become different.
different sometimes novel
When I say my novels are set in Israel in the last seventy years, this entails the fact that they begin hundreds or thousands of years earlier in time. And, sometimes in very, very different places, because we all come from somewhere, especially here in Israel.
different literature manifest
Literature may make the reader reexamine some of his or her own conventions, look at himself or herself in a different way, look at others in a different way. This goes way beyond just making statements or manifesting principles.
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.