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Letters from a Divided Land
by Amos Oz
An urgent and deeply necessary work, Dear Zealots offers three powerful essays that speak directly to our present age, on the rise of zealotry in Israel and around the world.
From the incomparable Amos Oz comes a series of three essays: on the universal nature of fanaticism and its possible cures, on the Jewish roots of humanism and the need for a secular pride in Israel, and on the geopolitical standing of Israel in the wider Middle East and internationally.
Dear Zealots is classic Amos Oz - fluid, rich, masterly, and perfectly timed for a world in which polarization and extremism are rising everywhere. The essays were written, Oz states, "first and foremost" for his grandchildren: they are a patient, learned telling of history, religion, and politics, to be thumbed through and studied, clung to even, as we march toward an uncertain future.
"Starred Review. Providing a worthy companion volume to Yossi Klein Halevi's Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, Oz's book leaves readers with a strong message about the need for a greater societywide openness to doubt and ambiguity." - Publishers Weekly
"Slender but forceful." - Kirkus
"[T]he three essays collected here, relevant to our polarized, populist world: they treat the nature of fanaticism, the Jewish roots of humanism (and the need for a secular appreciation of Israel), and Israel's geopolitical standing. Oz says he wrote them for his grandchildren, but they're good for us all."- Library Journal
"Concise, evocative ... Dear Zealots is not just a brilliant book of thoughts and ideas - it is a depiction of one man's struggle, who for decades has insisted on keeping a sharp, strident and lucid perspective in the face of chaos and at times of madness." - David Grossman, winner of the Man Booker International Prize
This information about Dear Zealots was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born Amos Klausner in Jerusalem in 1939, his parents were right-wing Zionists who had recently immigrated from Eastern Europe. His father, Yehuda Arieh Klausner, was a librarian and a scholar, and his mother, Fania Mussman, suffered from depression and committed suicide when Oz was only twelve. In an interview with The Huffington Post (2009), Oz described that time in his life:
"I was very angry with her... I was very angry with my father, I was very angry with myself. I blamed every one of us for the calamity... There was not a drop of compassion in me. Nor did I miss her. I did not grieve at my mother's death. I was too hurt and angry for any other emotion to remain... [it was only] when I reached the age when I could be my parents' parents [that] I could look at them with a ...
Name Pronunciation
Amos Oz: "a-mos (a is pronounced as in apple)" oh-zz
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I am what the librarians have made me with a little assistance from a professor of Greek and a few poets
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