Grossman on Samson and China
David Grossman, who is doing the rounds of the various book festivals held across China this month, became a broadcast journalist with Israel Radio at the absurd age of 10. Now at a ripe 56, Grossman, not surprisingly, has an impressive body of writing behind him - novels, non-fiction, short stories, essays and a sparkling range of books for young readers.
Widely known for his role as an advocate of peace, who with fellow writers Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua made a public appeal to the Ehud Olmert-led Israeli government to stop unleashing ammunition on the West Bank and Gaza Strip in August 2006, Grossman is also one of Israel's most visible faces of literature, whose works have been translated into 25 languages.
Two days after the appeal to stop the Israeli invasion, Grossman lost his son Yuri, then 20, a staff sergeant in the Israel-Lebanon war. Reluctant to talk about this, Grossman focuses on the pervasive and unrelenting nature of protracted wars.
