In The Army You Feel Violated -

I Think There Are Some Artists Whose Works Are Misanthropic.

And She Loved A Man Who Was Made Out Of Nothing. A Few Hours Without Him And Right Away She’d Be Missing Him With Her Whole Body, Sitting In Her Office Surrounded By Polyethylene And Concrete And Thinking Of Him. And Every Time She’d Boil Water For Coffee In Her Ground-floor Office, She’d Let The Steam Cover Her Face, Imagining It Was Him Stroking Her Cheeks, Her Eyelids And She’d Wait For The Day To Be Over, So She Could Go To Her Apartment Building, Climb The Flight Of Stairs, Turn The Key In The Door, And Find Him Waiting For Her, Naked And Still Between The Sheets Of Her Empty Bed.

I Was First Introduced To Kafka's Writing During My Compulsory Army-service Basic Training. During That Period, Kafka's Fiction Felt Hyperrealistic.

Etgar Means "challenge." And My Family Name Is Keret, Which Means "urban." So My Name Is "urban Challenge." My Joke Is, It's A Good Description Of A Birth But A Strange Name For A Human Being.

I Have To Admit That Talking Authoritatively About My Students' Stories Can Make Me Feel, At Times, Like An Astronaut Who Has Just Landed On A New Planet And Insists On Giving Guided Tours To Its Inhabitants.