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Etgar Keret

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Etgar Keret has been called the Kafka, the Vonnegut, the Woody Allen of Israel. He’s with us.

Etgar Keret (Moshe Shai)
Etgar Keret (Moshe Shai)

Etgar Keret writes stories so short and weird and wonderful they make you stop and think.  Could your lover have a zipper under his tongue and another man entirely inside?  Will our lies come back to greet us in another life?

Keret is a fabulist, and hip, and deep.  And Israeli.  Critics compare him to Kafka, Kurt Vonnegut, Woody Allen.  A writer who knows what Bruno Bettelheim called “the uses of enchantment,” in a life and place that can seem relentlessly brutal.

This hour, On Point:  talking goldfish, gunpoint composition, and Israeli writer, Etgar Keret.
-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Etgar Keret, Israeli author and filmmaker, his latest book is Suddenly, a Knock on the Door.

From Tom's Reading List

Newsweek "Ensconced in this new life, Keret spent eight years on the new book (it was published in Hebrew in 2010), his sixth collection since 1992. He did plenty else during that time, including codirecting a movie. But the stories that are his trademark—that start out conventionally (“Robbie was seven when he told his first lie”) then veer toward the absurd (a gumball machine transports Robbie to a place where his lies actually transpire)—trickled out more slowly than at any time since he began writing."

Toronto Star "What a strange and wonderful adventure is an Etgar Keret story collection. At any given moment, you may find yourself in the company of a girl who has spent her childhood on top of a refrigerator, or a slow-witted Mossad agent who pulls a dwarf KGB spy from the back of his mind, or even a young lover whose beautiful girlfriend every night turns into a fat man with a hairy back."

USA Today "A few years ago, July told me she really enjoyed Keret's short stories, particularly his 2006 collection, The Nimrod Flipout. After reading a couple pieces by the acclaimed Israeli writer, I became a big fan."

Excerpt

This program aired on April 24, 2012.

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