Amos Oz

Amos Oz (Jerusalem) is regarded worldwide as one of the greatest contemporary writers and is an important candidate for the Nobel Prize. In connection with the publication of the Dutch translation of his latest book A Tale of Love and Darkness, Oz is spending several days in the Netherlands.

Amos Oz grows up as the only child of a distant, rational father and a romantic, depressive mother, in a small, crowded home where books are the main inhabitants. He too takes refuge in the world of books and observes his family members as tragicomic characters from the works of Chekhov and Tolstoy. When he is twelve, his mother commits suicide. This dramatic event leaves a lasting mark on his life.

A Tale of Love and Darkness is a phenomenally written novel, full of beautiful metaphors, humour and tenderness. In a masterful way, Amos Oz intertwines the story of his personal life with one hundred and twenty years of family history, which begins in Odessa and, via Poland and Prague, ends in Israel, populated by refugees, pioneers and Holocaust survivors.

A Tale of Love and Darkness is a grand and fable-like book about a man, a family and a nation, entangled in a painful history.