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output. One theme was a highly critical approach to Israeli politics and society. Instead of
considering themselves a supportive part of the national project, those in the cultural sphere
took on the role of opposition. Literary work was infl uenced both by international cultural
trends and by dramatic events in Israel, notably the 1967 and 1973 wars and the end of Labor's
long political control in 1977.
The Voyage of Daniel
(1969) by Yitzhak Orpaz, for example,
about an exhausted war veteran who fi nds redemption through a mystical experience, was
a direct reaction to the state of shock Israeli society was in after its unexpected victory in the
Six-Day War in 1967.
A few years later, the Yom Kippur War cracked the image of the glorifi ed hero, a constant
portrayal in Israeli fi ction up through the Six-Day War. The new writers exposed existential
national fears behind the mask of confi dence. Following the Yom Kippur War, the editors of
Achshav
(Now) magazine wrote an “I told you so” editorial, as if Israel's losses in the war were
a kind of moral victory for avant-garde literature.
The left wing's struggle for peace became a central issue in Israeli fi ction. The optimistic
view of peace being attainable if Israel only wanted it badly enough was coupled with a pessi-
mistic perception that peace was not being achieved. Most of the post-realistic literature fell on
the left side of the political spectrum, and only a few authors, mostly the older ones, disputed
its themes.
In part, the leftist orientation of literature was a reaction to the perceived political defeat of
the Israel that the literary elite had championed: the Israel of Labor Party hegemony. But the
1977 triumph of Likud, with its large Mizrahi constituency, and the opening up of “ethnic” is-
sues also produced an upsurge in works that described the culture and experiences of Mizrahi
Jews. Yehoshua's fi rst novel,
The Death of an Old Man
(1962), tells a story of neighborhood
people getting rid of a troublesome senior citizen. Many interpreted the topic to be about
Israel's new generation overthrowing the country's founders. One prominent new voice on the
poetry scene was Erez Biton, who was born in Algeria and arrived with his family in Israel in
1948 as a six-year-old. Biton began publishing poetry in the late 1970s at the same time that he
was a leading fi gure in the Mizrahi consciousness movement.
Older writers like Yehoshua also wrote more about their roots. Yehoshua's book
Mr. Mani
(1990) is a story about fi ve generations of a Mizrahi family. Sami Michael, born in Iraq, also
brought to life the Mizrahi experience in the “old countries” and in Israel. In the novel
Victoria
(1995) he describes his mother, the spirit of the women from Middle Eastern countries, and the
hardships encountered in the new state.
The development of a mass market for books — as Israelis had more leisure time, education,
and income as well as improved technology for producing, selling, and distributing them —
brought a dramatic increase in the number of books published in Israel during the 1980s and
1990s. Several Israeli writers achieved international recognition, including Oz, Yehoshua,
Yoram Kaniuk, Appelfeld, David Shahar, Grossman, and Meir Shalev. At the same time, a
favorite Israeli outlet for publishing fi ction — literary magazines — declined, as did the publica-
tion of short stories in newspapers.
Yet precisely because of the development of the market, a literary split formed between
elite works aimed at a small, high-brow public and popular novels that sold a high number of
