The amazing thing about an artistic collaboration is that it is as intense and intimate as a romantic one. Sometimes even more so.
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 KeretI write what needs to be written the way that seems genuinely right. If what comes out of it are stories, then it is my vocation to believe in them and in the fact that they'll interest people and maybe affect their lives.
Etgar KeretIn America, where writers are preoccupied with the craft of writing, I always try to introduce this concept of the badly written good story. Turning the hierarchy around and putting passion on top and not craft, because when you just focus on craft, you can write something that is very sterile.
Etgar KeretWhat connects me so strongly to Israel is the fact that I'm second generation. My parents said, "We have a place where we can just be ourselves and nobody says, 'Don't tell me your opinion, you damn Jew, go somewhere else.'" Then you go to this country and other Jews tell you to shut up. It's frustrating. I think that we have a bad government and that some people are fearful. They're going with the class bully. But I really truly believe - you read it in my stories - that deep inside, people have goodness.
Etgar Keret