The first book from the acclaimed, award-winning author of A Tale of Love and Darkness and the New York Times Notable Book, Scenes from Village Life. The Washington Post praised Israeli author Amos Oz as “one of our essential writers, laying out for our observation, in ever-increasing breadth and profundity, the mad landscape of our time and his place.” Here, in his first book, is a disturbing and moving collection of short stories about kibbutz life. Each of the eight stories in this volume grips the reader from the first line, and convey the tension and intensity of feeling in the founding period of Israel, a brand-new state with an age-old history. Some are love stories, more are hate stories, and frequently the two urges intertwine. “A strong, beautiful, disturbing book. It speaks piercingly—whether wittingly or unwittingly, I know not—of a dimension of the Israeli experience not often discussed, of the specter of the other brother, of a haunting, an unhealed wound; it reminds us of polarizations everywhere that bind and diminish us, that may yet rend us.” —The New York Times “As you read, you feel yourself, in all these stories, sinking deeper into the loam of Oz’s sensibility, a paradoxical mix of sensuality and disdain. A good collection by an important international writer.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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.

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

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. "

Linked short stories set in a town in the midst of change: “One of the most powerful books you will read about present-day Israel.” —The Jewish Chronicle “‘Scenes from Village Life’ is like a symphony, its movements more impressive together than in isolation. There is, in each story, a particular chord or strain; but taken together, these chords rise and reverberate, evoking an unease so strong it’s almost a taste in the mouth . . . ‘Scenes from Village Life’ is a brief collection, but its brevity is a testament to its force. You will not soon forget it.” —The New York Times Book Review Strange things are happening in Tel Ilan, a century-old pioneer village. A disgruntled retired politician complains to his daughter that he hears the sounds of digging at night. Could it be their tenant, that young Arab? But then the young Arab hears the digging sounds too. And where has the mayor’s wife gone, vanished without a trace, her note saying “Don’t worry about me”? Around the village, the veneer of new wealth—gourmet restaurants, art galleries, a winery—barely conceals the scars of war and of past generations: disused air-raid shelters, rusting farm tools, and trucks left wherever they stopped. Scenes From Village Life is a memorable novel in stories by the inimitable Amos Oz: a brilliant, unsettling glimpse of what goes on beneath the surface of everyday life. Translated from Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange “Finely wrought . . . Oz writes characterizations that are subtle but surgically precise, rendering this work a powerfully understated treatment of an uneasy Israeli conscience.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Informed by everything, weighed down by nothing, this is an exquisite work of art.” —The Scotsman

In Between God and Beast, Avraham Balaban argues that Oz's fiction has, from the outset, followed Jung's psychological theory. The major psychic processes that are depicted throughout Oz's prose are typically Jungian. For example, the treasure hunt, which is the deep structure of many of Oz's stories and novels, reflects the search for the "self" in which all the vying forces of one's psyche coexist peacefully. Oz uses many of the symbols of the treasure as well as of the self as they are presented by Jung. Many of the symbols examined in this study have never before been discussed in articles about Oz's writings. Balaban also devotes a considerable portion of his study to the religious dimension of Oz's work as well as the impact of his personal life on his writings. Balaban reveals that from the beginning Oz's work has moved in two directions: it demonstrates an unceasing effort to delve ever deeper into the dark side of consciousness while heightening the contrast between the opposing elements vying within his protagonists; and it consistently attempts to bring those oppositions to peaceful coexistence and even to a fruitful mutual relationship.