Amos Oz, inventor of other people's life stories, contemplates his own

Read almost any recent interview with Amos Oz and you might think the 69-year-old is a statesman first and Israel's finest living novelist second. After the year began with mass destruction returning to Gaza, Oz has fielded more questions about Israeli war crimes, Hamas and the chances of peace in the Middle East than his newly translated novella, Rhyming Life and Death.

If this imbalance is a source of frustration, Oz does a good job of hiding it, accepting that it's often the fate of writers 'from troubled parts of the world'. More impressively still, he cracks bawdy jokes about the competing claims on his split personality. 'I am both [a writer and a spokesman],' he says, 'but I try not to be both at the same time. If I write a story, I don't want to preach. When I write angry articles telling my government to go to hell, I am not telling stories. A man can be a lover and a gynaecologist both, but not at the same time.'

This burst of vulgar erudition turns out to be characteristic. Oz proves to have a storyteller's knack for a well-turned anecdote, a politician's skill at incisive commentary and a humorist's way with a witty epigram. Occasionally, he does all three at once.

For instance, this recollection of the many years he spent living on a kibbutz, and how he would beg for time off to write: 'I used to feel very guilty,' he says. 'I would come to the communal dining room and sit next to someone who had milked 100 cows. I had written three sentences and erased four. I was ashamed to have my lunch.' He pauses. 'But then I told myself that I am like a shopkeeper. My job is to open the joint at a set hour and wait for customers. If they come, it's a good day. If they don't, I am still doing my job by just sitting there and waiting.'

Oz is similarly amused and amusing when asked what he thinks of the English translation of Rhyming Life and Death, only recently published three years after the Hebrew original. 'Translating a work of literature into a foreign language is like playing a violin concerto on the piano. It can be done very successfully on one strict condition: never try to force the piano to produce the sounds of the violin.'