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  • Published: 1 August 2014
  • ISBN: 9780099581475
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $30.00

Between Friends




In eight interlinked family dramas, master storyteller Amos Oz reveals the secrets and frustrations of the human heart, now reissued in beautiful new backlist style

Eight interlinked family dramas set on an Israeli kibbutz from the masterful storyteller behind A Tale of Love and Darkness


‘On the kibbutz it’s hard to know. We’re all supposed to be friends but very few really are’

Ariella, unhappy in love, confides in the woman whose husband she stole.

Nahum, a devoted father, can’t find the words to challenge his daughter’s promiscuous lover.

The old idealists deplore the apathy of the young, while the young are so used to kibbutz life that they can’t work out if they’re impassioned or indifferent.

In this short story collection Amos Oz reveals the secrets and frustrations of the human heart

‘Lucid and heartbreaking’ Guardian

  • Published: 1 August 2014
  • ISBN: 9780099581475
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 208
  • RRP: $30.00

About the author

Amos Oz

Born in Jerusalem in 1939, Amos Oz was the internationally acclaimed author of many novels and essay collections, translated into over forty languages, including his brilliant semi-autobiographical work, A Tale of Love and Darkness. His last novel, Judas, was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017 and won the Yasnaya Polyana Foreign Fiction Award. He received several international awards, including the Prix Femina, the Israel Prize, the Goethe Prize, the Frankfurt Peace Prize and the 2013 Franz Kafka Prize. He died in December 2018.

Also by Amos Oz

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Praise for Between Friends

Lucid and heartbreaking… Explores the always uncertain relationships between men and women, parents and children, friends and enemies, in a clear, clipped language perfectly suited to the laconic tone of the narrative and impeccably rendered into English by Sondra Silverston

Alberto Manguel, Guardian

There’s a beautiful economy and simplicity to Oz’s storytelling

The Times

Oz lifts the veil on kibbutz existence without palaver. His pin-point descriptions of individuals and spaces…are pared to perfection in order to resonate. His people twitch with life

Tom Adair, Scotsman

Oz is a quiet, plain, compelling writer

Alan Taylor, Herald

Between Friends is arguably something new, a collection of stories, but so interlinked by theme, setting and its rolling cast that it boasts the sense, scope and unity of a novel… The writing, tight and delicate, is technically breathtaking

Billy O'Callaghan, Irish Examiner

Deeply affecting chamber piece…

Ben Lawrence, Daily Telegraph

Engaging collection… Beautiful, spare prose

Lucy Popescu, Independent on Sunday

Oz is brilliant at compact images in which a small action expresses a complexity of unarticulated emotion

Rebecca Abrams, Financial Times

Presents us...with a complex and melancholic vision of people stuggling to transcend their individuality for the sake of mundanely idealistic goals

Michael Sayeau, Times Literary Supplement

All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail

Mail on Sunday

This poignant, often heartbreaking, collection evocatively captures life in a kibbutz

Good Book Guide

Lucid and heartbreaking… Explores the always uncertain relationships between men and women, parents and children, friends and enemies, in a clear, clipped language perfectly suited to the laconic tone of the narrative and impeccably rendered into English by Sondra Silverston

Alberto Manguel, Guardian

There’s a beautiful economy and simplicity to Oz’s storytelling

The Times

Oz lifts the veil on kibbutz existence without palaver. His pin-point descriptions of individuals and spaces…are pared to perfection in order to resonate. His people twitch with life

Tom Adair, Scotsman

Oz is a quiet, plain, compelling writer

Alan Taylor, Herald

Between Friends is arguably something new, a collection of stories, but so interlinked by theme, setting and its rolling cast that it boasts the sense, scope and unity of a novel… The writing, tight and delicate, is technically breathtaking

Billy O'Callaghan, Irish Examiner

Deeply affecting chamber piece…

Ben Lawrence, Daily Telegraph

Engaging collection… Beautiful, spare prose

Lucy Popescu, Independent on Sunday

Oz is brilliant at compact images in which a small action expresses a complexity of unarticulated emotion

Rebecca Abrams, Financial Times

Presents us...with a complex and melancholic vision of people stuggling to transcend their individuality for the sake of mundanely idealistic goals

Michael Sayeau, Times Literary Supplement

All Israeli life is here, rendered in loving detail

Mail on Sunday

This poignant, often heartbreaking, collection evocatively captures life in a kibbutz

Good Book Guide