OZ: The first rule is never to travel when I’m pregnant with a book.

INTERVIEWER: What about the novel you are writing now?

OZ: I never talk about it—one mustn’t expose pregnancy to X rays, it can damage the baby.

A few years ago in Germany I met some left-wing intellectuals who were enthusiastically pro-Saddam Hussein. I told them that in truth they loved Saddam because he is a friend of Qaddafi, who is a friend of Fidel Castro, who was once married to Che Guevara, and Che was Jesus Christ, and Jesus is love, therefore we have to love Saddam.

Amos Oz lives in Arad, a small new town of twenty-two thousand inhabitants, built in 1961 in the Negev Desert. Inside, the house is simply furnished and welcoming. Stairs lead from the sitting room to Oz’s study below: a tidy, womblike room, entirely lined with books, like wallpaper. One long shelf contains dozens of Oz’s own books, in various editions and translations.  “I’m proud of my garden,” he said. “I created it. There is no topsoil here, so it had to be brought specially.” Amos Oz speaks perfect English, with a slight accent. The clipped, well-rounded sentences, clearly enunciated, indicate the punctuation, as if he were writing.

Restul, aici: Paris Review – The Art of Fiction No. 148, Amos Oz.