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Sign up todayScenes from Village Life
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreStrange things are happening in Tel Ilan, a century-old pioneer village. A disgruntled retired politician complains to his daughter that he hears the sound of digging at night. Could it be their tenant, that young Arab? But then the young Arab hears the digging sounds too. Where has the mayor’s wife gone, vanished without a trace, her note saying “Don’t worry about me”?
Around the village, the veneer of new wealth—gourmet restaurants, art galleries, a winery—barely conceals the scars of war and of past generations: disused air raid shelters, rusting farm tools, and trucks left wherever they stopped.
Scenes from Village Life is a memorable novel-in-stories by the inimitable Amos Oz: a brilliant, unsettling glimpse of what goes on beneath the surface of everyday life.
Amos Oz (1939–2018) was an Israeli journalist and author of acclaimed fiction, nonfiction, and short stories who was called one of “Israel’s most prolific writers and respected intellectuals” by the New York Times. He was awarded many honors, including the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, France’s the Legion of Honor award, the Israel Prize, the Goethe Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature, and the Heinrich Heine Prize, among others.
Stefan Rudnicki is an award winning audiobook narrator, director and producer. He was born in Poland and now resides in Studio City, California. He has narrated more than three hundred audiobooks and has participated in over a thousand as a writer, producer, or director. He is a recipient of multiple Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards as well as a Grammy Award, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Ray Bradbury Award. He received AudioFile’s award for 2008 Best Voice in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Along with a cast of other narrators, Rudnicki has read a number of Orson Scott Card's best-selling science fiction novels. He worked extensively with many other science fiction authors, including David Weber and Ben Bova. In reviewing the twentieth anniversary edition audiobook of Card’s Ender's Game, Publishers Weekly stated, "Rudnicki, with his lulling, sonorous voice, does a fine job articulating Ender's inner struggle between the kind, peaceful boy he wants to be and the savage, violent actions he is frequently forced to take." Rudnicki is also a stage actor and director.
Nicholas de Lange is a professor at the University of Cambridge and a renowned translator. He has translated Amos Oz’s work since the 1960s.
Reviews
“Scenes From Village Life is a brief collection, but its brevity is a testament to its force. You will not soon forget it.”
“Informed by everything, weighed down by nothing. This is an exquisite work of art.”
“An impressive and very affecting achievement…These stories, in their humanity, may do more for Israel than any of the decisions we have been led to expect of its leaders in the months to come.”
“One of the most powerful books you will read about present-day Israel.”
“Finely wrought…Oz writes characterizations that are subtle but surgically precise, rendering this work a powerfully understated treatment of an uneasy Israeli conscience.”
“In exquisitely controlled prose, renowned Israeli author Oz reminds us of the creepy unsureness that underlies all ‘village’ life, rural or urban—and not just in Israel.”
“A thought-provoking collection…Filled with tension and allegory, Oz’s perceptive tales explore the nuance and alienation of transitioning states.”
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