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?
Is the implication that Yehoshua is bitter about his low American sales, primarily interested in increasing those sales, or both?
ReplyDeleteI 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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