Amos Oz was born in Jerusalem on May 4, 1939. His parents had emigrated to Israel in 1934.
His father, Yehudah Aryeh Klausner was of Lithuanian origin, and his mother, Fania Mussman, was Ukranian by birth. After the tragedy of his mother’s suicide Amos left home at age of fifteen to join the kibbutz of Hulda, south of Tel Aviv, and changed his name from Klausner to Oz. He started by working in the fields, but the kibbutz administrators decided to send him to study philosophy and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
After graduation he divided his time between writing and teaching in the kibbutz school. At Huda he married Nili, and they had three children, Fania, Galia and David. In 1987 he left the kibbutz and moved to the town of Arad, on the edge of the Judea desert.
Since 1987 he has taught literature at the Ben Gurion University of Be’er Sheva. He has also spent time studying and teaching in many European and American universities such as Oxford, Tübingen, Berkeley, Colorado Springs and Boston.
Author of books, articles and essays, he has written for children as well as adults, and his works have been translated into more than thirty languages.
In 1991 Amos Oz became a member of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. He has received many prestigious awards and honours. He was made Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic in 1984, and received the Légion d’Honneur in 1997. Other awards include the Bialik Prize in 1986, the Prix Femina Étranger in 1988, the Frankfurt Peace Prize in 1992, the Sandro Onofri Literary Prize and the Catalunya Prize in 2004, and the Goethe Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Political Literature in 2005.
Deeply committed in social and political fields, he is one of the founding members of Peace Now, created in 1977 to give expression to dialogue with the Palestinians and one of the strongest supporters of the Labour Party of Shimon Peres.
Amos Oz has written political opinion columns for national and international publications such as “The New Yorker“ and “Il Corriere della Sera”.
Michael mio (My Michael)
translation by Rosy Molari
Milano,Bompiani, 1975 e 1994 and Milano, Feltrinelli, 2002
In terra d’Israele
translation by Arno Baehr, preface by Lucia Annunziata
Genova, Marietti, 1992
Conoscere una donna (To Know a Woman)
translation by Alessandro Guetta
Parma, Guanda 1992 and Milano, TEA, 1996 and Milano, Feltrinelli, 2003
Fima (Fima)
translation by Sarah Kaminski and Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Bompiani, 1997 and Milano, Feltrinelli, 2004
Soumchi (Soumchi)
translation by Glauco Ameri, illustrated by Fabian Negrin
Milano, Mondadori, 1997 and 2001
Una pantera in cantina (A Panther in the Basement)
translation by Elena Loewenthal, postscript by Antonio Faeti
Milano, Fratelli Fabbri,1999 and 2003 and Milano, Bompiani, 2001
Il senso della pace
translation by Matteo Bellinelli
Bellinzona, Casagrande, 2000
Lo stesso mare (The Same Sea)
translation by Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2000 and 2002
La scatola nera (Black Box)
translation by Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2002 and 2004
Una storia d’amore e di tenebra (A Tale of Love and Darkness)
translation by Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2003 and 2005
Contro il fanatismo
translation by Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2004
D’un tratto nel folto del bosco
translation by Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2005
Non dire notte (Don’t call it Night)
translation by Elena Loewenthal
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2007
Fuoco straniero
translation by Gaio Sciloni
in AA.VV., La novella d’Israele. Narratori israeliani contemporanei commentary by Gaio Sciloni, preface by A.B. Yoffe
Milano, Spirali, 1987
Il monte del cattivo consiglio (The Hill of Evil Counsel)
translation by Sarah Kaminski and Elena Loewenthal
in AA.VV., Sei capolavori della letteratura ebraica
Roma, Theoria, 1993
Tutti i fiumi
translation by Saverio Campanini, consultancy by Elena Loewenthal
in AA.VV., Amori raccontati dai più grandi narratori israeliani, introductory note by Moni Ovadia
Viterbo, Nuovi Equilibri, 1999
Così fa il vento
translation by Elena Loewenthal
in Nadine Gordimer (edited by), Storie
Milano, Feltrinelli, 2005