I was born and bred in a tiny, low-ceilinged ground-floor apartment.

Israel is imperfect, of course it is - a far cry from the monumental dreams of the founding fathers. One of the reasons is that their dreams were unrealistic. They were bigger than life. These were messianic dreams, dreams about total redemption for the Jews, for the world. Such dreams do not come true, not in their entirety.

I work in Hebrew. Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages. Not now, for the last three thousand years, Hebrew has been penetrated and fertilized by ancient Semitic languages - by Aramaic, by Greek, by Latin, by Arabic, by Yiddish, by Latino, by German, by Russian, by English, I could go on and on. It's very much like English. The English language took in many many fertilizations, many many genes, from other languages, from foreign languages - Latin, French, Nordic languages, German, Scandinavian languages. Every language has influences and is an influence.

Hebrew has a system of tenses, which is, in a big way, different from the English system of tenses, probably different than any European system of tenses, which means a different sense of reality, which means a different concept of time.

Israel is a fulfillment, and as a fulfillment, it is flawed. Dreams fulfilled are imperfect. And, Israel is imperfect, of course it is - a far cry from the monumental dreams of the founding fathers. One of the reasons is that their dreams were unrealistic. They were bigger than life. These were messianic dreams, dreams about total redemption for the Jews, for the world. Such dreams do not come true, not in their entirety.

Israel is a fulfilled dream. Nothing that exists here existed here a hundred years ago. "The State of the Jews" was not a title of a country. It was a title of a futuristic novel. A little more than a hundred years ago, "Tel Aviv" was not a city. It was a title of another novel written by the same author. The "Return to Zion" was a name of another novel. There was a bookshelf. There was no state. There was no nation. All you can see, if you look through the window - everything you see is a fulfillment of dreams, different dreams.

I never regard my characters, my protagonists, as personifications. It's not that I sit by my desk and I pick up a character who will be the spokesperson of the Israeli Left, another one will be the spokesperson of the Right, another one will be the spokesperson of Middle Eastern Jews, European Jews, religions Jews and so on.