The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God: and Other Stories - Softcover

Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories stings and thrills with fierce fables of modern life. Set in landscapes ranging from "this armpit town outside Austin, Texas" to "this village in Uzbekistan that was built right smack at the mouth of Hell," these stories lay their plots' central tensions out plainly: "Dad wouldn't buy me a Bart Simpson doll," one begins. Then they take off like little roller coasters, careening through the pathos of Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, the clowning of David Sedaris's Barrel Fever, the in-your-face violence of Quentin Tarantino, and the bewildered alienation of Franz Kafka. But readers need not know any of Keret's sources to enjoy his stories fully. The Israeli writer's aphorisms leap off the page and lodge themselves in the mind: "There are two kinds of people, those who like to sleep next to the wall, and those who like to sleep next to the people who push them off the bed." Keret's vernacular prose is fun to read, and his vision of the world is weirdly comforting. Happiness never really flourishes, but small hopes and graces abound. --Michael Joseph Gross

Born in Tel Aviv in 1967, Etgar Keret is one of the leading voices in Israeli literature and cinema. In the last ten years he has published three books of short stories and novellas, two comics books, two feature screenplays, and numerous teleplays. Bestsellers in Israel, his story collections have been published in eight different languages. His movie, "Malka Red-Heart," won the Israeli "Oscar," as well as acclaim at several international film festivals. Keret lectures at Tel Aviv University's School of Film.