In the Israeli papers much attention is directed to A.B.Yehoshua and his insult of American Jews. I have a very contrarian opinion of why he wants to dismiss American Jews. Compare the sales of his books to the books of American Jewish writers (or even of other Israelis).
I checked a few amazon.com sales figures:
A.B.Yehoshua's best selling work today (as far as I looked) is Journey to the End of the Millenium, rank 67,335.
His most recent, The Liberated Bride: 178,460.
Compare:
Amos Oz, Tale of Love & Darkness: 23,915
Philip Roth, Everyman: 13 (#14 on NYT bestseller list)
Bellow: Adventures of Augie March (a really old book): 12,247
See what I mean?
2 comments:
Is the implication that Yehoshua is bitter about his low American sales, primarily interested in increasing those sales, or both?
I think Yehoshua is too dense for American readers, and his fiction isn't about the relationship between Israel and the diaspora. So I suspect that it's only the former. You probably read my longer comment on what he actually said. I can't imagine that you'd be interested enough to read the 10 opinion pieces in the Israeli paper Ha'aretz!
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