Between Friends

Description

In eight interlinked family dramas, master storyteller Amos Oz reveals the secrets and frustrations of the human heart, now reissued in beautiful new backlist style Eight interlinked family dramas set on an Israeli kibbutz from the masterful storyteller behind A Tale of Love and Darkness 'On the kibbutz it's hard to know. We're all supposed to be friends but very few really are' Ariella, unhappy in love, confides in the woman whose husband she stole. Nahum, a devoted father, can't find the words to challenge his daughter's promiscuous lover. The old idealists deplore the apathy of the young, while the young are so used to kibbutz life that they can't work out if they're impassioned or indifferent. In this short story collection Amos Oz reveals the secrets and frustrations of the human heart 'Lucid and heartbreaking' Guardian

Born in Jerusalem in 1939, Amos Oz was the internationally acclaimed author of many novels and essay collections, translated into over forty languages, including his brilliant semi-autobiographical work, A Tale of Love and Darkness. His last novel, Judas, was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017 and won the Yasnaya Polyana Foreign Fiction Award. He received several international awards, including the Prix Femina, the Israel Prize, the Goethe Prize, the Frankfurt Peace Prize and the 2013 Franz Kafka Prize. He died in December 2018.

Lucid and heartbreaking... Explores the always uncertain relationships between men and women, parents and children, friends and enemies, in a clear, clipped language perfectly suited to the laconic tone of the narrative and impeccably rendered into English by Sondra Silverston -- Alberto Manguel * Guardian * Between Friends is arguably something new, a collection of stories, but so interlinked by theme, setting and its rolling cast that it boasts the sense, scope and unity of a novel... The writing, tight and delicate, is technically breathtaking -- Billy O'Callaghan * Irish Examiner * Oz is brilliant at compact images in which a small action expresses a complexity of unarticulated emotion -- Rebecca Abrams * Financial Times * There's a beautiful economy and simplicity to Oz's storytelling * The Times * Oz lifts the veil on kibbutz existence without palaver. His pin-point descriptions of individuals and spaces...are pared to perfection in order to resonate. His people twitch with life -- Tom Adair * Scotsman * Oz is a quiet, plain, compelling writer -- Alan Taylor * Herald * Deeply affecting chamber piece... -- Ben Lawrence * Daily Telegraph * Engaging collection... Beautiful, spare prose -- Lucy Popescu * Independent on Sunday * Presents us...with a complex and melancholic vision of people stuggling to transcend their individuality for the sake of mundanely idealistic goals -- Michael Sayeau * Times Literary Supplement * All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail * Mail on Sunday *