Amos Oz is an Israeli author of international acclaim whose works have been translated into more than 45 languages. In May, along with playwright Tom Stoppard and former US vice president Al Gore, he will receive the Dan David Award, totaling $3 million. Oz, 69, who teaches literature at Ben Gurion University in southern Israel, was cited by the judges for “portraying historical events while emphasising the individual and for personal exploration of the tragic conflict between two nations.” A founding member of the Peace Now Movement, Oz has always been at the forefront of the Israeli struggle for identity and a staunch advocate of a two-state solution. He recently spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Joanna Chen at his home in Tel Aviv about literature, politics and voices of the dead that won’t go away• What do you think makes your writing so accessible to people all over the world?I suppose there is something universal in the provincial. My books are very local, but in a strange way I find that the more local, parochial and provincial, the more universal literature can be.• Why have so few of your books been translated into Arabic? The Arabic translation matters to me more than any other. It’s the one I feel involved in most. Unfortunately, there is a wall of resistance with the Arab countries. Many Arab publishers won’t touch anything coming from Israel, whether it comes from the hawks or the doves.• What role does the past play in determining the future of this region? The past almost dominates this region — it doesn’t just play a role. I think this is one of the tragedies of this region. People remember too well and they remember too much. Both Jews and Arabs carry deep injuries, dramatic injuries.• You’ve talked about a compromise of pain and clenched teeth. Can’t there be a happy ending? No, I don’t believe in a happy ending to this kind of tragic conflict. Essentially because this is a conflict between right and right. Any compromise will mean concession; it will mean renouncing something which both parties very strongly regard as their own, and both parties had very good reasons to regard as their own, so a compromise will be like an amputation for both sides. There are no happy compromises.• Do you think writers still express the social conscience of the people?There is a long-standing expectation in the Jewish tradition that the writer and the poet will somehow be the heir of the prophet. Of course, no writer can deliver this, and even prophets were not successful in their day in changing the minds of the people. But the expectation exists.• You’ve spoken out against the threatened Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. By doing so we will unite the entire Palestinian people and perhaps the entire Arab world around Hamas. It will raise public opinion for Hamas. If we are not careful we will achieve this consequence. • Is the Zionist project still alive and kicking? I think it’s a success story, but like any dream that comes true it tastes bitter. The only way to keep a dream rosy and intact is never to try to live it out. This is true not only of creating a nation. This is true of writing a novel, planting a garden, living out a sexual fantasy. Zionism is lived out, and as such it is disappointing. But this is not about the nature of Zionism; this is about the nature of dreams.• Do you think America is helping the peace process? Yes. I would like to see the US seriously encouraging Israel to make the necessary concessions for a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Encouraging Israel also means reassuring Israel. Israel will have to take huge risks by renouncing the occupied territories, by renouncing some of its defences. • Your mother committed suicide when you were a child. Do you ever hear her voice?Sometimes, yes. I very often hear the voices of dead people. Dead people are very important to me.• What if a person doesn’t want to hear the voices of dead people? Not hearing those voices is missing part of yourself, part of your life. When I wrote ‘A Tale of Love and Darkness’ I was inviting the dead to my home for coffee. I said to them, “Sit down. Let’s have a cup of coffee and talk. When you were alive we didn’t talk much. We talked about politics and current affairs, but we didn’t talk about things that matter. And after the talk and the coffee you’ll go away. You’re not staying to live in my home. But you are invited to drop by from time to time for a cup of coffee.” This in my view is the right way to treat the dead.• You wrote that as a child you wanted to grow up to be a book. Is a book more enduring than a person? It was a matter of personal safety. I was a terrified little child. Rumours were beginning to come to Jerusalem at the beginning of the 1940’s about the mass murder of the Jews in Europe. The air was full of premonitions about the same destiny awaiting the Jews of Jerusalem. I thought it would be safer to grow up and become a book than to become a man, because as a book at least a copy of me would survive in some far-away library in some far-away country.
