When acclaimed Israeli writer Etgar Keret reread the manuscript of his latest collection of short stories, Autocorrect, he questioned whether the book was too dark, too pessimistic. He had written it during a difficult period: soon after his mother’s death, during the Covid pandemic and throughout the demonstrations against Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms. It was 6 October 2023 and Keret was due to deliver the book to his publisher two days later. Then October 7 happened, and Keret forgot about it for several months.
“In hindsight, there are many things in the book that when I read it now, I say, ‘Wow, this makes sense. How come I wrote it before October 7?’” Keret, 58, says over Zoom from his home in Tel Aviv. He refers to Corners, a story about divorced parents who want a writer to compose the text for their son’s tombstone. “That’s basically what writers did here after October 7. There were families wiped out and writers composed eulogies for people they never knew. So why would I write a story like that before then? I don’t know.” He then offers one possible suggestion: his own psychological make up. “There’s something about being hypersensitive and having a weak hold on reality that sometimes makes you predict what’s going to happen because you ignore all the diversions.”
The 33 stories in Autocorrect, two of which were written post October 7, are certainly dark. Some depict existential unease, dystopias and alternate realities. The title story asks if a CEO son can reverse his father’s fateful outcome. In A World Without Selfie Sticks, a man meets an alternative but realistic version of his ex-girlfriend and in Guided Tour, the last few surviving humans in a destroyed world work as guides in Ramat Gan for alien tourists. Others are touching, such as Cherry Garcia Memories With M&Ms on Top where a man cares for his dementia-addled mother. Keret’s trademark wry wit is present, but it is sporadic.
Autocorrect is Keret’s seventh short story collection and, he says, the one closest to a novel. “It’s very much a zeitgeist book. I’ve never lived in a time where the zeitgeist was so clear and extreme. When I look at the senselessness of the world around me, I feel that the metaphors I have for my existence come from the present. If life before felt like choosing a matinee show and going to see it, now life feels like opening your Instagram and watching random movies the algorithm has chosen for you.”
We’re talking a week into the Israel-Iran war, and after Keret’s first uninterrupted night’s sleep since then. “I feel that all my life I was trained for wars,” he says. “My parents were Holocaust survivors, and I think I’m a relatively anxious person so now the whole country feels like I do every day,” he adds, laughing.
Despite the deluge of war-related media content, Keret consciously restricts his news consumption, believing that access and exposure to constant information in the world is one of the biggest problems of our age. “I’ve told my students many times, ‘If you’re a deer in the forest, you’re afraid of the lion in the forest. But if you’re a deer in the forest with Facebook, you’re afraid of all the lions in the world.’ When I hear a siren, I run to the stairwell. I hear a boom, there is glass breaking somewhere. This is reality. I don’t need anything extra.”
Keret grew up in Ramat Gan, the youngest of three siblings. One of the leading writers of contemporary Israeli literature, Keret’s books, novels and short stories have been published in 50 languages and have won numerous awards. His most recent is a lifetime achievement award from ACUM (The Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel). As well as short stories, Keret employs a variety of storytelling techniques, including plays, screenplays (Jellyfish, his first film as a director alongside his wife, Shira Geffen, won the Caméra d’Or prize for best first feature at Cannes in 2007), songs, animated and live-action films, comic books and choreography. Keret is an Associate Professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and is the director of a new MFA in Creative Writing at JTS (Jewish Theological Seminary) in New York.
Keret describes himself as an optimist, “by genetic inheritance”. During such difficult times, how does he remain so? “The way I see it, life is a bridge. Walking over the bridge, we’re used to holding the railing so we will feel safer. But when somebody electrocutes the railing, then it’s better not to hold the railing and just walk to the other side.” We can, he says, make our own choices over what you have control over, and look for the positive. “Let’s say when you go to sleep and you close your eyes you can choose to think what’s going to become of Britain or you could say, my partner smells so good. I thought that at his age he’d start rotting, but he smells like flowers.”
After October 7, Keret wanted to be useful. “I can’t drive, I’m a bad cook, but I did what I can. I went to places to meet survivors or soldiers as a presenter of old-fashioned humanity; this ability to talk in a certain way, to tell a joke, not to be politically correct at the right time.”
The New York Times has described Keret as a genius and readers and audiences often turn to him for wisdom or guidance. Does he feel pressure to provide it? “It just shows you what a tough spot humanity is in,” he deadpans. “Well, it is confusing,” he continues. “I said to my wife a few months ago that since the war started, I stopped being a writer and became a rabbi. In the past month, three of the people who kindly drove me home from events for survivors [of October 7] asked me to find them a shidduch.”
“But I’m not a rabbi. I’m the kind of guy who, when you’re on the tube, sits next to you and start talking to you without you even saying anything and explains all kinds of stuff,” he says. “Selfishly, my existence is first and foremost for me to understand who the hell I am, and what the hell do I want. Now I’m saying that if you get something out of it, this is totally collateral damage. I wasn’t aiming for you to feel better about your life, but if it happens, I’m totally happy with that.”
Autocorrect by Etgar Keret is published by Granta, £15.
Etgar Keret will be speaking at the Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) on 20 August edbookfest.co.uk and at the Owl Bookshop, Kentish Town, London on 21 August owlbookshop.co.uk
