One of the dreams of Zionism was to be a bridge. Instead, we are creating exclusion between the East and the West instead of creating bridges; we are contributing to the conflict between East and West by our stupid desire to have more.

A. B. Yehoshua is an Israeli novelist, playwright, and essayist. He is one of the most influential writers of modern Hebrew literature and has been described as "the most important Israeli novelist alive today." His works have been translated into over 25 languages. He is best known for his novels The Lover, Five Seasons, A Late Divorce, Mr. Mani, and The Retroactive Man. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Israel Prize for literature in 1985, the Bialik Prize in 1989, and the Emet Prize in 2009. He is also a professor emeritus of literature at the University of Haifa.