Full name: Gaza Blues: Different Stories

Authors: Samir El-Youssef, Etgar Keret Year: 1996 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Short Stories, Fiction Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780954054243 0954054245

These two new voices from Israel and Palestine have no common political agenda (they don't talk about politics to each other), but share a stated desire to make the conflict more complex for their readers. Complex as human life is complex: maddening, contradictory, filled with conflicting emotions, weaknesses, dreams, failings. For those who have not travelled to this region, your only recourse is literature, which addresses why the conflict is so intractable and why the dehumanisation of the enemy through slogans makes the desired resolution so impossible. The wit, daring, and sheer bloody-minded audacity of these marvellous stories makes it, for me, the book of the year for anyone who prefers to listen to the voices of the people of this region instead of the sound of their own rhetoric. Similar books: Martyrs' Crossing by Amy Wilentz Dancing Arabs by Sayed Kashua Almost Dead by Assaf Gavron The Attack by Yasmina Khadra Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz Let It Be Morning by Sayed Kashua The Toughest Indian in the World by Sherman Alexie Birds of America by Lorrie Moore Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth In Search of Satisfaction by J. California Cooper A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout A Piece of Mine by J. California Cooper The Matter Is Life by J. California Cooper Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J. California Cooper Some Soul To Keep by J. California Cooper