Among Friends by Amos Oz Publisher: Yilin Press

Introduction
Among Friends is an excellent collection of short stories by Amos Oz, a world-class Israeli writer and a strong contender for the Nobel Prize. The subject matter, connotation and language are not inferior to Scenes from Country Life, but are more refined and concise. Amos Oz is good at solving the mysteries of family life. His works have attracted worldwide attention and resonance and have won many awards, including the Israel National Award, the Femina Award, the Goethe Cultural Award, and the International Franz Kafka Award. Writers and scholars such as Mo Yan, Bi Feiyu, Yan Lianke, Chi Li, Qiu Huadong, Xu Kun, Xu Zechen, and Chen Zhongyi highly praise his works. In Among Friends, Oz returns to the kibbutz that once gave him unlimited power in his youth, and writes about the love and hatred, changes and contradictions there. This book once won the American Jewish Book Award. The author calls it the ultimate university about human nature. He said: "I have lived in the kibbutz for more than 30 years. Although I left there 27 years ago, I still dream about going back there again and again, and I have such a dream at least once a week. This signal tells me that it is time to look back at the kibbutz in the 1950s from a distance. At that time, I was 15 years old and went to the kibbutz for the first time, wanting to start a new life. In "Among Friends", I tried to observe the kibbutz without nostalgia or anger, but strive for accuracy and sympathy."
"Between Friends" tells stories that happen between friends: a widower in his fifties discovers that his daughter in the prime of life has been "abducted" by his best friend of half his life; the kibbutz leader who has entered middle age still feels ripples in his heart when facing his former secret crush; the feelings between men and women bring some people closer to each other, but also make others flee in a hurry, such as the bachelor Tsvi, who clumsily and stubbornly prevents friendship from turning into romance, but breaks his friend's heart; two women fall in love with the same man, and the victorious latecomer wants to be close friends with the original wife... These stories are played out in today's kibbutz, and they are the loneliness that exists in this place where loneliness should not exist.