IT WAS a red-letter day for Hebrew literature. On June 14th David Grossman, one of Israel’s most celebrated authors, won the Man Booker International Prize for “A Horse Walks Into a Bar”. Also on the shortlist of six was another Israeli, Amos Oz. For a small country whose politicians normally gush over any international accolade, the response was uncharacteristically terse. It took Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, nearly 24 hours to post a single sentence of congratulation.
Mr Netanyahu’s reticence is indicative of a cold war between right-wing nationalists and the country’s left-leaning cultural elite, epitomised by Mr Grossman. The two men clashed in 2015 when Mr Grossman was among a group of writers who renounced their candidacy for the Israel Prize for Literature after Mr Netanyahu tried to remove some judges whom he claimed were “anti-Zionist”.
Mr Grossman received the Booker for one of his least political books. But for more than three...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2sYbZVQ
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