When People Have Peace, They Hate It

The Very Same Book, Even If It Is Translated Very Accurately, Let's Say From Hebrew Into English Or From English Into Hebrew, Becomes A Different Book Because Language Is A Musical Instrument.

We Got A Wonderful Present From Stalin And Hitler That They Never Meant To Give Us. We Were Immune For 60 Years Or So To Aggression, Racism And Militarism. They Made Us Partly Immune To These Things. Now It Appears This Stalin-hitler Present Has Reached Its Expiration Date. We Were Spoiled By This. So Maybe We Are Just Emerging Out Of A Relatively Golden Age.

When I Need To Take A Side, I Write A Newspaper Article And I Tell My Government, "you Should Not Do That, You Should Do This." They Don't Listen To Me, But I've Been Doing This For Sixty Years Now. But, When I Write A Novel, I Am Not In That Business. I Follow The Way People Change. I Follow The Way People, Who Are Very Antagonized To One Another Become Very Close To One Another And Vice-versa. Sometimes I Follow The Way People Who Are Intimately Close To Each Other Move Apart.

In Writing A Novel, The Writer Must Be Able To Identify Emotionally And Intellectually With Two Or Three Or Four Contradicting Perspectives And Give Each Of Them Very A Convincing Voice. It's Like Playing Tennis With Yourself And You Have To Be On Both Sides Of The Yard. You Have To Be On Both Sides, Or All Sides If There Are More Than Two Sides.

All My Novels Are Rooted In Their Time And In Their Place. The Place Of My Novels Is Israel, Almost Without Exception. Almost Without Exception, My Novels Are Rooted In Israel Because That's The Place I Know Well. And, That's My Gutsy Advice To Any Young Writer: Write Only About What You Know Well. Don't Write About That Which You Don't Know.