Most Popular Books by Amos Oz

The International Bestselling memoir from award-winning author Amos Oz, "one of Isreal''s most prolific writers and respected intellectuals" (The New York Times), about his turbulent upbringing in the city of Jerusalem in the era of the dissolution of Mandatory Palestine and the beginning of the State of Israel. Winner of the National Jewish Book Award "[An] ingenious work that circles around the rise of a state, the tragic destiny of a mother, a boy’s 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 mother’s 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

A snapshot of Israel and the West Bank in the 1980s, through the voices of its inhabitants, from the National Jewish Book Award–winning author of Judas. Notebook in hand, renowned author and onetime kibbutznik Amos Oz traveled throughout his homeland to talk with people—workers, soldiers, religious zealots, aging pioneers, desperate Arabs, visionaries—asking them questions about Israel’s past, present, and future. Observant or secular, rich or poor, native-born or new immigrant, they shared their points of view, memories, hopes, and fears, and Oz recorded them. What emerges is a distinctive portrait of a changing nation and a complex society, supplemented by Oz’s own observations and reflections, that reflects an insider’s view of a country still forming its own identity. In the Land of Israel is “an exemplary instance of a writer using his craft to come to grips with what is happening politically and to illuminate certain aspects of Israeli society that have generally been concealed by polemical formulas” (The New York Times).

This novel is at once a haunting love story and a reflective portrait of place."--Jacket.

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 novel''s 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.

"A delicate contemporary tale about the quiddities of love and the perpetual mysteries of human motivations" from the bestselling Israeli author of Judas ( Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book of the Year At Tel-Kedar, a settlement in the Negev desert, the longtime love affair between Theo, a sixty-year-old civil engineer, and Noa, a young schoolteacher, is slowly disintegrating. When a pupil dies under difficult circumstances, the couple and the entire town are thrown into turmoil. Amos Oz explores with brilliant insight the possibilities—and limits—of love and tolerance. "A rich symphony of humanity . . . If Oz''s eye for detail is enviable, it is his magnanimity which raises him to the first rank of world authors." — Sunday Telegraph (UK) "Vivid, convincing, and haunting." — The New York Times Book Review "A vividly and affectionately detailed picture of Israeli village life—and of what might be called a JulyOctober relationship—by acclaimed essayist and novelist Oz . . . A perfectly pitched comedy, expertly translated, and one of Oz''s most attractive and accomplished books." — Kirkus Reviews "This novel, his 10th (after Fima), is set in Tel Kedar, a quiet desert town in the Negev that is both a microcosm of Israeli society and a vividly evoked setting whose atmosphere and residents are palpable . . . his story carries thought-provoking implications." — Publishers Weekly "Skillfully alternating point of view between his two main characters, Oz shows us the painful process by which a couple uncouples, one sinew at a time." — Booklist

Seven years after their divorce, Ilana breaks the bitter silence with a letter to Alex, a world-renowned authority on fanaticism, begging for help with their rebellious adolescent son, Boaz. One letter leads to another, and so evolves a correspondence between Ilana and Alex, Alex and Michel (Ilana''s Moroccan husband), Alex and his Mephistophelian Jerusalem lawyer—a correspondence between mother and father, stepfather and stepson, father and son, each pleading his or her own case. The grasping, lyrical, manipulative, loving Ilana has stirred things up. Now, her former husband and her present husband have become rivals not only for her loyalty but for her son''s as well.

“Powerful” essays from a founder of the Peace Now movement and advocate for a two-state solution (Library Journal). The haunting poetry of [Oz''s] prose and the stunning logic of his testimony make a potent mixture." —Washington Post Book World Amos Oz was one of the first voices of conscience to advocate for a two-state solution. As a founding member of the Peace Now movement, Oz has spent over thirty-five years speaking out on this issue, and these powerful essays and speeches span an important and formative period for understanding today''s tension and crises. Whether he is discoursing on the role of writers in society or recalling his grandmother''s death in the context of the language''s veracity; examining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a tragicomedy or questioning the Zionist dream, Oz remains trenchant and unflinching in this moving portrait of a divided land. "[Oz is] the modern prophet of Israel." —Sunday Telegraph (UK)

Fima muses about the human condition in the squalid confines of his bachelor flat, he is a man who dreams noble dreams but cannot master reality.

Three stories of “sensuous prose and indelible imagery” that re-create the world of Jerusalem during the last days of the British Mandate (The New York Times). Refugees drawn to Jerusalem in search of safety are confronted by activists relentlessly preparing for an uprising, oblivious to the risks. Meanwhile, a wife abandons her husband, and a dying man longs for his departed lover. Among these characters lives a boy named Uri, a friend and confidant of several conspirators who love and humor him as he weaves in and out of all three stories. The Hill of Evil Counsel is “as complex, vivid, and uncompromising as Jerusalem itself” (The Nation). “Oz evokes Israeli life with the same sly precision with which Chekhov evoked pre-Revolutionary Russian life.” —Los Angeles Times

Hailed by Publishers Weekly as "magnificent", this moving novel is set in Israel just before the Six-Day War, and describes life on a kibbutz, where the founders of Israel and their children struggle to come to terms with their land and with each other. "(Oz''s) strangest, riskiest, and richest novel".--Washington Post Book World.

“Oz conjures up a fairy story in which we may well recognize ourselves, our history and our nations . . . be prepared simply to be enchanted.” —The Guardian In a gray and gloomy village, all of the animals—from dogs and cats to fish and snails—disappeared years before. No one talks about it and no one knows why, though everyone agrees that the village has been cursed. But when two children see a fish—a tiny one and just for a second—they become determined to unravel the mystery of where the animals have gone. And so they travel into the depths of the forest with that mission in mind, terrified and hopeful about what they may encounter. From the internationally bestselling author Amos Oz, this is a hauntingly beautiful fable for both children and adults about tolerance, loneliness, denial, and remembrance. “In this swiftly moving fable, Oz creates palpable tension with a repetitive, almost hypnotic rhythm and lyrical language that twists a discussion-provoking morality tale into something much more enchanting.” —Booklist “Short, poetic, and haunting, the book operates on a plane of mystery somewhere between fable and fairy tale . . . The great beauty of this story is the rhythm and clarity of its evocative language.” —New York Journal of Books “From the whispered tales of a local monster to the brash, spunky heroes on a quest, internationally acclaimed Israeli author Oz litters his story with fairy-tale tropes that give this narrative a fable-like quality; the atmosphere is intriguingly secretive and shadowed, but the prose is measured and accessible and the length manageable.” —The Bulletin

In the village of Tel Ilan, things are not what they seem. And the veneer of new wealth around the village cannot conceal relics of a troubled past--abandoned outbuildings, air raid shelters, rusting farm tools, and abandoned trucks.

"גיבור הספר פנתר במרתף הוא נער המכונה "פרופסור" מפני שאינו מפסיק לבדוק מילים, להפוך אותן, להרכיבן ולסדרן מחדש. בימים של חרדה ושל עוינות הדדית הוא מתיידד עם שוטר בריטי תימהני ומואשם על ידי חבריו בבגידה. בתוך כך הוא מגלה את עצמו מחדש, בודק, מהפך ומרכיב מחדש את עולמו, את יחסו להוריו, לאויב, ולעצמו. זהו סיפור עלילה מרתק, חכם ושובה לב, פרי עטו של אחד מבכירי הסופרים העבריים בימינו." -- מעטפת אחורית

The third novel from the international bestselling author of Judas. "A profusion of delightful passages couched in unfailingly lovely language." — The New York Times Book Review 1939. As the Nazis advance into Poland, a Jewish mathematician and watchmaker named Pomeranz escapes into the wintry forest, leaving behind his beautiful, intelligent wife, Stefa. After the war, having evaded the concentration camps, they begin to build new lives; Stefa in Stalin''s Russia and Pomeranz in Israel, where, as they move toward reunion, another war is brewing. An intricate tale of people seeking escape from a hostile world in thrillingly fantastical ways. "Lyrical . . . Its youthfulness and energy are exhilarating." — The New Yorker "A masterful aggregate of philosophical speculation, witty social commentary and solid story telling." — Kirkus Reviews "An outstandingly rich book . . . a pleasure to read." — Times Literary Supplement

Novel of the microcosmic world of a kibbutz community located near the Jordanian frontier.

Amos Oz, Israel''s preeminent writer, once again displays his mastery of human nature as he spins a rich tapestry of character and political intrigue out of the birth of Israel. The year is 1947, the last days of the British mandate in Palestine, and 12-year-old Proffy is accused of treason for his friendship with a kindly British soldier.

A rich and varied selection of writings from the early sixties to the present by Amos Oz, one of Israel s leading novelists, public intellectuals, and political activists. The Amos Oz Reader draws on Oz''s entire body of work and is 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 Oz s masterpiece, A Tale of Love and Darkness. With an illuminating introduction by Robert Alter. Praise for A Tale of Love and Darkness "A[n] ingenious work that circles around the rise of a state, the tragic destiny of a mother, a boy s creation of a new self." The New Yorker "Detailed and beautiful As he writes about himself and his family, Oz is also writing part of the history of the Jews." Los Angeles Times AMOS OZ is a prize-winning novelist and essayist whose honors include the Prix Femina, the Israel Prize, the Frankfurt Peace Prize, and the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters. Most recently, his memoir, A Tale of Love and Darkness, received the Koret Jewish Book Award. He lives in Arad. NITZA BEN-DOV is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at Haifa University, as well as a scholar of biblical poetics. ROBERT ALTER is an esteemed scholar and translator. His recent translations include The Book of Psalms and The Five Books of Moses. "

Some great writers write and rewrite the first sentence of a book a hundred times and never get beyond it. Others, presumably, give up altogether and, perhaps in despair, decide to begin just as it comes to them.

This collection brings together political, personal and literary essays by Israel s most celebrated living writer. Lively and undogmatic, Oz s compelling insight makes for consistently stimulating reading, while his commentary on Israel s cultural and political situation seems more relevant than ever in the light of recent events. These essays, which offer a unique perspective on the author s own experience and development, will win for Oz new readers, while delighting those already familiar with his writings.

The Israeli master’s exceptional final novel SHORTLISTED 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 Portman Judas is the first novel selected for the Amos Oz reading circle established by Natalie Portman.

A tale of “dazzling brilliance . . . a simple story which conveys boundless meanings both modest and diverse, set in Jerusalem directly after WWII” (Historical Novel Society). When Soumchi, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in British-occupied Jerusalem just after World War II, receives a bicycle as a gift from his Uncle Zemach, he is overjoyed—even if it is a girl’s bicycle. Ignoring the taunts of other boys in his neighborhood, he dreams of riding far away from them, out of the city and across the desert, toward the heart of Africa. But first he wants to show his new prize to his friend Aldo. In the tradition of such memorable characters as Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield, Amos Oz’s Soumchi is fresh, funny, and always engaging. “What a difference spirit and talent make! . . . told . . . with zest and buoyant humor, from the dual viewpoint of the alternately crushed and elated Soumchi and the amused author who delights in his boyhood excesses.” —Kirkus Reviews “Oz shows a remarkable ability to stay true to his character and expand him fully into a multi-faceted jewel. Soumchi is a concise read which enhances each person’s view on life, possessions, and how tender life and far-reaching imagination can be at such a sensitive age.” —Historical Novel Society

This book explores the ideology of Jewish identity not on the land but in texts of the modern classical heritage. this book also takes us into the minds of two major literary figures.

A man who has lost his wife to cancer takes in the girlfriend of the son who is wandering the mountains of Tibet.

Unto Death contains two beautiful short novels linked by death and destruction. Crusade is set in 1096 - a year of sinister omens. Count Guillaume of Touron sets out on a crusade to Jerusalem and on the way he serves his God by killing any Jews he meets. But will the Count find the peace of mind he seeks when he faces the terrible realities of war in the Holy Land? In Late Love Oz portrays an elderly professor living alone in Tel Aviv, a man neither loving nor loved. His last mission is to expose the plight of his fellow Russian Jews and alert the people of Israel to the conspiracy that threatens them. But nobody wants to listen...

Amos Oz''s first book: a disturbing and beautiful collection of short stories about kibbutz life. Written in the ''60s, these eight stories convey the tension and intensity of feeling in the founding period of Israel, a brand-new state with an age-old history.

Beginning to tell a story, says Amos Oz, is like making a pass at a stranger in a restaurant. The author demonstrates how the beginnings of fictional works are contracts that bind together reader and writer. Often the first lines of a story determine whether the deal will be closed: will the reader continue to the end or abandon the book? Amos Oz''s essay collection is an insightful study of the significance of opening passages in selected fictional works of literature.

"This book consists of six conversations between Amos Oz and Shira Hadad, who worked closely with Oz as the editor of his novel Judas. The interviews, which took place toward the end of Oz''s life, about a decade after the publication of his memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness, capture the writer''s thoughts and opinions on many of the subjects that occupied him throughout his life and career, including writing and creation, guilt and love, death and the afterlife. In the first interview, "A Heart Pierced by an Arrow," Oz discusses how he became a writer, along with his writing process and its attendant challenges. "Sometimes" explores Oz''s reflections on men, women, and relationships across his experience and work. "A Room of Your Own" sketches his development as a writer on the kibbutz and his eventual decision to leave. In "When Someone Beats up Your Child," Oz discusses the critical reception of his work, and in "What No Writer Can Do" he describes his experience teaching literature, including his thoughts on contemporary modes of literary instruction. In the concluding piece, "The Lights Have Been Changing Without Us for a Long Time," he reflects on other writers and on changes he has observed in himself and others over time. The title comes from a passage in the first interview: Oz says, "What makes an apple? Water, earth, sun, an apple tree, and a bit of fertilizer. But it doesn''t look like any of those things. It''s made of them but it is not like them. That''s how a story is: it certainly is made up of the sum of encounters and experiences and listening.""--

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 “A collection of stories . . . that boasts the sense, scope and unity of a novel . . . Breathtaking.” —Irish Examiner “A complex and melancholic vision of people struggling to transcend their individuality for the sake of mundanely idealist goals.” —The Times Literary Supplement

DIV 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. /div

Proposes that the murderous violence that has riven our society is driven as much by confusion as by inescapable hatred. Challenging the reductionist division of people by race, religion, and class, Sen presents a vision of a world that can be made to move toward peace as firmly as it has spiraled in recent years toward brutality and war. - from publisher information.

A collection of essays bringing together the author''s thoughts on Israel''s offensive into Lebanon, on fanaticism, the PLO, Jewish terrorists, Arafat and the political, religious and ethnic tensions within his nation.

Traduit dans plus de dix pays, Mon Michaël confirme tous les espoirs qu''avait fait naître le premier roman d''Amos Oz, Ailleurs peut-être. Il nous montre Hanna, qui, déçue par son mari, par ses amis, par la vie, devient peu à peu étrangère au monde qui l''entoure. Tout lui paraît atteint d''une implacable érosion à laquelle elle-même ne peut échapper. Dans son journal, qu''elle tient comme pour se prouver sa propre existence, fiction et réalité se mêlent. C''est à travers ces pages d''une langue admirable que nous la voyons s''enliser dans la nostalgie de son enfance en Palestine, dans des fantasmes où deux jumeaux arabes reflètent à la fois ses obsessions sexuelles et les terreurs d''un peuple qui ne peut vivre en paix. La guerre du Sinaï est proche. Labyrinthe de rues et de rocs, Jérusalem que cernent d''imprécises menaces, étouffe. Hanna a peur. Elle va entrer dans la guerre comme on sombre dans la mer. Ce bouleversant portrait de femme est aussi une remarquable analyse d''un pays toujours entre guerre et paix.