When I started writing my stories, I thought that not only nobody outside my language, but nobody outside my neighbourhood would get them.
Etgar KeretI rarely return to characters. My characters, at least most of them, are much more a part of that superorganism that is the story than separate and independent creatures.
Etgar KeretIn Israel, the role of the writer is dictated by the language in which you write. Writers see themselves as cultural prophets.
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 Keret