Things Can Be Translated, But

When I Was Little, My Ambition Was To Grow Up To Be A Book. Not A Writer. People Can Be Killed Like Ants. Writers Are Not Hard To Kill Either. But Not Books: However Systematically You Try To Destroy Them, There Is Always A Chance That A Copy Will Survive And Continue To Enjoy A Shelf-life In Some Corner On An Out-of-the-way Library Somehwere In Reykjavik, Valladolid Or Vancouver.

Let Me Make It Very Clear: When I Say Compromise I Do Not Mean Capitulation. When I Say Compromise I Definitely Do Not Mean What Jesus Christ Meant When He Offered Us To Turn Our Other Cheek To Our Enemies. Compromise Means, Try To Meet The Other Somewhere Half-way. And, This Can Only Happen If The Other Is Willing To Go Half-way In Order To Meet You. That Is The Very Strict Line Between Compromise And Capitulation. I'm A Great Believer In Compromises. I Do Not Believe In Capitulation.

Black Box Is Not A Statement About Injustice Committed Against Sephardi Oriental Jews Or About The Extremism Of Religious Jews Or The Lack Of Imagination Of The Old Israeli Elites. It's A Human Story, In My View, First And Foremost About A Mystical Communion Between Enemies. This Is The Inner Story Of The Novel. This Is My Business As A Novelist. It Is Not About Positions And Ideas.

The Opposite Of Compromise Is Not Integrity. The Opposite Of Compromise Is Not Idealism. The Opposite Of Compromise Is Fanaticism And Death. And Yes, I Know One Or Two Things About Fanaticism And Death, And I Reject Them. The Alternative To Fanaticism And To Death Is Not Some Miraculous Realization That Someone Has Been Wrong And He Has To Apologize. No, The Answer To Fanaticism And To Death Is Curiosity And Compromise And Concession.

On My Parents Scale Of Values, The More Western Something Was, The More Cultured It Was Considered.