I'm not sure I'm happy with words such as "task" or "role" when they are attached to literature.
Amos OzWriting a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices.
Amos OzMy musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing.
Amos OzIn 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.
Amos OzWhen I say my novels are set in Israel in the last seventy years, this entails the fact that they begin hundreds or thousands of years earlier in time. And, sometimes in very, very different places, because we all come from somewhere, especially here in Israel.
Amos OzThe Palestinians have no other land. They are absolutely right about this. The Israeli Jews also have no other land and they are absolutely right about this. It is a tragedy of two peoples claiming the same very small country - very small, about the size of New Jersey. And both of them are right. Both of them have no other homeland as peoples. As individuals, maybe, but not as a people.
Amos Oz