Judas

當今以色列文壇最具聲望的作家Amos Oz在《愛與黑暗的故事》(A Tale of Love and Darkness)之後，睽違10年的第一部重要小說。

Shmuel是一個年輕、有理想的學生，被校園佈告欄上神秘的手寫短箋所吸引。好奇心領他來到一間奇怪的房子，在那裡，有個傷病的老人需要一個可以與他爭論，也能唸書給他聽的同伴。除了老人，還有其他人也在那間屋子裡...一個被過去的鬼魂所糾纏的女人。Shmeuel被她所吸引，對性的迷戀變成溫柔的愛與奉獻；同時，他也被老人所牽引，對智識的迷戀也演變為溫柔的愛與奉獻。Shmuel開始揭開房子交織成團的歷史，進而理解猶太與阿拉伯衝突的起始，以及耶路撒冷本身的濫觴，一直到基督教、猶太教以及叛徒猶大為止。

小說場景設定在1959-60年尚處於分裂狀態的耶路撒冷，Judas是一部精緻的愛與成年的故事，也是對叛國這個概念做根本的反思。這是一本來自以色列在世的偉大作家，以欲望和好奇心所寫成的小說。

Amos Oz's first major novel in a decade - since A Tale of Love and Darkness, which sold over 100,000 copies

Shmuel, a young, idealistic student, is drawn to a mysterious handwritten note on a campus noticeboard. This takes him to a strange house, where an elderly invalid man requires a paid companion, to argue with and read to him. But there is someone else in the house, too… A woman, who is trailed by ghosts from her past. Shmuel is captivated by her, a sexual obsession which evolves into gentle love and devotion; and he is pulled to the old man, an intellectual obsession which also evolves into gentle love and devotion. Shmuel begins to uncover the house’s tangled history and, in doing so, reaches an understanding that harks back not only to the beginning of the Jewish-Arab conflict, but also the beginning of Jerusalem itself – to Christianity, to Judaism, to Judas.

Set in the still-divided Jerusalem of 1959–60, Judas is an exquisite love story and coming-of-age tale, and a radical rethinking of the concept of treason. It is a novel steeped in desire and curiosity from one of Israel's greatest living writers.