I think that becoming a parent kind of made me try to be more responsible. And it made me much more stressful.
Etgar KeretI was first introduced to Kafka's writing during my compulsory army-service basic training. During that period, Kafka's fiction felt hyperrealistic.
Etgar KeretIn Israel, there is this reduction of the political discourse to something that is very limited. It's as if you have that pitch that only dogs can hear. Sometimes I feel I speak at such a pitch that very few people around me communicate with what I'm saying.
Etgar KeretAnd she loved a man who was made out of nothing. A few hours without him and right away sheโd be missing him with her whole body, sitting in her office surrounded by polyethylene and concrete and thinking of him. And every time sheโd boil water for coffee in her ground-floor office, sheโd let the steam cover her face, imagining it was him stroking her cheeks, her eyelids and sheโd wait for the day to be over, so she could go to her apartment building, climb the flight of stairs, turn the key in the door, and find him waiting for her, naked and still between the sheets of her empty bed.
Etgar KeretThe moment that you have a child - that you know that when he'll turn 18, he'll join the Army and go there for three years of compulsory service - then you can't help yourself of thinking about the future - speculating about it, dreading it or even being - trying to be more active to change it and improve it.
Etgar Keret