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.

I wrote The Same Sea not as a political allegory about Israelis and Palestinians. I wrote it about something much more gutsy and immediate. I wrote it as a piece of chamber music.

I often write about reconciling. Reconciling, or maybe half-reconciling between antagonists, between people who are deadly enemies. I write about reconciliation, but not as a miracle, as a slow, gradual process of mutual discovery - discovering one another. I write about sad, sober, sometimes heart-breaking compromises.

That's my gutsy advice to any young writer: write only about what you know well.

My dream is much more modest than the dreams of the founding fathers. My dream is for Israel to live in peace with its neighbors and at peace with itself. This will be sufficient for me.

I don't write novels about expeditions to the planet Mars because I haven't been there and I don't know anything about it.

In many ways, I regard Sharon and Arafat as birds of a feather.