GROSS: Did it change your feelings about Israel or staying in Israel? You know, it's scary enough taking the responsibility or assuming the responsibility of being a parent without having that in your face the day that your son is being born. And you're bringing your son to a world in which he can be hurt and killed by a random violent act. You know, it was kind of like a quantic leap. How did the terrorist attack and the victims in the hospital affect your experience of your son's birth?ĮTGAR KERET: Well, I think that the moment in which you become a parent - for me, it was probably a dramatic moment. It almost sounds like a literary conceit because it's such - you know, such the juxtaposition, but it actually happened to you. And the staff of the hospital is busy with the incoming victims from a terrorist attack. Your new collection of personal essays opens with your wife in the hospital in labor. He previously joined us on FRESH AIR in 2006, after the publication of the book 'Gaza Blues,' which he collaborated on with the Palestinian writer Samir El-Youssef.Įtgar Keret, welcome back to FRESH AIR. His work has been published in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and he's contributed to This American Life. In spite of the subject matter, his essays are often funny, as well as moving. Keret is a secular Jew, but has a sister who's Orthodox. He also writes about religion and the ways in which it divides Israelis. His essays are about being the son of survivors and being a father, knowing his son and his country face an uncertain future. Keret's mother is a Holocaust survivor, too.

It was a long life, considering that, as a teenager, he survived the Holocaust by living in a hole with his parents for nearly two years. His father died of cancer at the age of 84. He's written a new collection of personal essays about the seven years between his son's birth and his father's death.

Gaza blues etgar keret