AB Yehoshua: Instead of dealing with Palestine the new generation do a play or write a story

The acclaimed Israeli novelist on the political role of the writer and why it is time to rethink the two-state solution

They are, if not the holy trinity, then at least the hallowed trio. Amos Oz, David Grossman and AB Yehoshua – once hailed as “the three tenors” of Israeli literature, who have for decades served an exalted double role. Inside the country, they are the unofficial liberal conscience of the nation: delivering rousing speeches at demonstrations or firing off newspaper polemics that burn with righteous indignation, whether lamenting Israel’s march rightward, denouncing its presence in the territories occupied since 1967 or making the deeply unfashionable case for peace with the Palestinians. Outside Israel, where literary prizes are heaped on them with unflagging regularity, they offer those same red-hot criticisms – but at the same time, and with no contradiction, also mount a defence of Israel itself: not its governments, but its right to be there and what they see as its enduring necessity.

Of the three, Yehoshua might be the least well known beyond Israel. Perhaps that’s because he does not have Oz or Grossman’s unnerving ability to deploy the English language with a precision and eloquence few native speakers can muster. Yet Yehoshua, who in his 80th year is the oldest of the trio, is at least as celebrated. In 2005, he was the sole Israeli on the shortlist for the first International Man Booker prize.

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