My Michael (novel)
My Michael is a novel written in Hebrew by the Israeli author Amos Oz, published in 1968 by Am Oved, and translated into about thirty languages. It has also been adapted into a movie, in Hebrew. The Bertelsmann publishing house named it among the one hundred best novels of the 20th century.
Cover of the English translation | |
Author | Amos Oz |
---|---|
Original title | מיכאל שלי |
Country | Israel |
Language | Hebrew |
Publisher | Am Oved |
Publication date | 1968 |
The book describes the love and marriage of a young woman against the background of 1950s Jerusalem. The book manages to probe into the mystery of the world of the Jerusalem girl, and follows the nightmares that come to control her. In the process, the reader comes to know the general atmosphere of Jerusalem, its neighborhoods, and its alleyways.
Criticism
As'ad AbuKhalil in an article in Al-Akhbar in 2010 has called the depiction of Arabs in the book "racial profiling at its worst." The Arabs are "silent", "dirty", and "are about to commit 'pogrom', even though the word is Russian and it was formulated to portray the actions of non-Arabs against Jews in nineteenth century Russia."[1]
References
- Amos Oz, As'ad AbuKhalil, March 26, 2010
External links
- Amos Oz discusses My Michael on the BBC World Book Club
- Oz, Amos (2001). My Michael. HMH. ISBN 0547542666.