A Tale of Love and Darkness

A Tale of Love and Darkness is a memoir written by Israeli novelist Amos Oz, which was first published in Hebrew in 2002. The book has been translated into 28 languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide. A bootleg Kurdish version was discovered at a shop in northern Iraq in 2011. Oz was said to be overjoyed.

This book was published 50 years after Amos Oz's mother committed suicide with sleeping drugs when he was 12, three months before his bar mitzvah. The final work is both cruel and kind, full of meandering observations on a life in politics and writing.

Oz, the lone child of European Jews who arrived in the Promised Land, grew up alongside the fledgling state of Israel, first enamored of a fervent nationalism until becoming violently (and quite humorously) disillusioned in one unforgettable episode. Oz, as a lonely youngster, felt unnoticed by his clumsy father and perplexed by his intelligent but terribly sad mother. People, she told him, were a perpetual source of deception and disappointment. Books, on the other hand, would never let him down. Hearing what happened to the Jews who remained in Europe, the young Oz desired to become a book, since no matter how many books were burnt, one copy had a good chance of surviving.

Oz claims he killed his father by relocating to a kibbutz at the age of 15 and changing his name. But his father, like Oz's mother, lives on in this memoir, not only in his memory of her but in the very presence of this book. She enthralled him with stories that "amazed you, sent thrills up your spine, then vanished back into the darkness before you had time to see what was in front of your eyes".

Detailed information:
Author: Amos Oz

Language: English
Genre: Memoir
Link to read: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27574