tinvan

  Paris Review - David Grossman, The Art of Fiction No. 194 David Grossman , The Art of Fiction No. 194 Interviewed by Jonathan Shainin Issue 182, Fall 2007 Grossman at Mishkenot Sha'ananim, Jerusalem, 2007.   In 1987, to mark the twentieth year of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the editors of the Israeli newsweekly Koteret Rashit dispatched the young novelist David Grossman to the West Bank for seven weeks. Grossman, a fluent speaker of Arabic, visited Palestinians in refugee camps and cities, kindergartens and universities, as well as Israeli settlers in their fortified enclaves and army officers patrolling the Palestinian territories. The resulting article filled an entire issue of the magazine and created an uproar in Israel. Grossman had made clear that the Palestinians, who had been suffering the daily brutalities of the occupation for a generation, would be docile no more. “It was a real shock,” Tom Segev, one of his editors, told me. “We did ...