Oz, Amos

(Israeli, 1939– )

Amos Oz writes gripping novels about modern Israeli life, interweaving a shrewd analysis of Israel's politics and history with intimate stories about love, sex, and betrayal. Start with Fima (1991), the story of a man who works as a receptionist in a gynaecologist's clinic and spends much of his life fantasizing about solving his nation's political problems while undertaking a series of sexual adventures. Black Box (1987) traces the break-up of a marriage through letters exchanged between a husband and wife seven years after their divorce. Panther in the Basement (1995) is a short, entertaining book set in Jerusalem in 1947, at the end of the British occupation of Palestine. The narrator is a 12-year-old boy who yearns to become a hero, but finds himself accused of treachery.

Saul Bellow, Mordecai Richler, Iris Murdoch  TT