Anita Susan Grossman
AN INTERVIEW WITH AMOS OZ
ASG:
Was there anything about American life that especially sur–
prised or startled you? I know that you've been here before, but this
is the first time you've actually lived here for a period of time.
AO:
I don't know.
I'll
have to take everything with me back to my
darkroom in Kibbutz Hulda and work on it before I can sort out my
American impressions. I am not very quick at that.
If
I had been
quick, I would have been a journalist, I guess .
ASG:
Do you see yourself as writing essentially for an Israeli reader–
ship?
AO:
Always. Hebrew is my musical instrument, and Israelis are my
immediate audience. As a matter of rule, I always publish in
Hebrew first.
ASG:
What Hebrew writers most influenced you?
AO:
I regard [Micha Josef] Berdyczewski, [Joseph Hayyim] Bren–
ner, [Shmuel Yosef] Agnon as my literary mentors, but often I read
about myself in reviews and criticisms in America and Germany that
I am some sort of illegitimate Israeli offspring of this or that great
Russian or French writer.
In
fact, my genuine literary parents and
mentors are virtually unknown to my readers outside Israel, which is
a source of frustration to me .
ASG:
To ask an autobiographical question, the collection of your two
novellas entitled
Unto Death
was dedicated to the memory of your
father, Yehuda Arieh Klausner . Is there any particular reason for
the dedication of that book to him?
AO:
That's the one I published close to his death, and he was very
fond of at least one of the two stories in the book, "Crusade." That's
the only piece of my writing of which he had wholeheartedly ap–
proved. I thought that it would be only right to dedicate this one to
his memory.
ASG:
Did he follow your career and read your work?
AO:
Yes , very intensively.
ASG:
Was he proud of your writing?
AO:
I guess in the end he was , even though he didn't approve of my
joining a kibbutz in my teens .
In
the end he accepted the idea.
ASG:
People tend to make peace with their parents after a while.
AO:
When you have your first child, you begin to understand what
