Etgar Keret: "My mother, who survived the Holocaust, used to repeat something to me that stuck with me"

Barcelona"If you take one piece of advice, don't miss this book," Quim Monzó assured a few days ago on X about El blues de la fi del món, by Quim Monzó on X about The Blues of the End of the World, by Etgar Keret (Tel Aviv, 1967). Published in Catalan by La Segona Perifèria, translated by Paul Sánchez Keighley – as well as the recommendable anthology the recommendable anthologyThe Ages of Man (2024) – and in Spanish by Siruela, the seventh collection of stories by the Israeli author champions imagination, irreverent humor, and the human capacity to fail a little better each time in a world where the latest technologies, wild capitalism, and violence threaten to erase the last traces of compassion and love.

Keret appears punctually on his computer screen in Tel Aviv, the city where he grew up and where he still lives and teaches creative writing. It's eleven in the morning, but he's been up for hours: he has a habit of leaving at a quarter past seven to take a walk on the beach, which is ten minutes from his home. "I'm sorry I haven't been to Barcelona in so long. Perhaps with the next book they'll invite me – he admits, before offering a small sample of his irony –. Right now, with things as they are in my country, it's normal for you to be afraid of someone like me coming."

His stories have been translated into more than 40 languages, but you resist working on them daily.

— But their stories, especially those of

But their stories, especially those ofThe blues at the end of the world, end quite badly. His self-help method would not satisfy the majority of readers of this kind of books.

— Last year I opened a master's degree in creative writing in the United States. The main idea is to explain how writing has evolved over time. In the 20th century, writers tried to find truths they could explain to their nation to unite it, but that has ended. Writing is a tool for survival. If we live passively and accept the version of events they tell us, we are completely lost. The way to not lose our minds and hope for the future is by telling our own story. My mother, who survived the Holocaust, used to repeat something to me that stuck with me.

Which one?

— I said that if when things are going well you walk down the street and someone calls you it's because they want to offer you something good: I was thinking of alcohol, drugs, sex... When things are going badly, on the other hand, if they call you it's because they want to kill you. In good times, if we throw ourselves into the river we know the current will take us somewhere good. In bad times, instead of hitchhiking we have to resign ourselves to walking. We can't aspire to reach the summit, but to light a fire along the way, sit around it, and tell each other something. Perhaps if we do it well we'll catch someone else's attention and feel less alone.

Before, she told me that writing stories gave her hope. How would you say we find this hope in The Blues at the End of the World? There are especially devastating stories, perhaps the hardest we have ever read from her.

— I agree with what you are saying. The blues of the end of the worldThey put into practice a word of our times, resilience.

They put into practice a word of our times, resilience.

— They live in times of uncertainty and war, in a country full of psychopaths. The only thing they can do is become aware that they must continue fighting so as not to lose their human condition and be degraded to the condition of users.

Gondola explains a disturbing relationship that begins through Tinder. The scientists of Solo feed their androids with artificial intelligence so they can become the soulmates of the person they accompany, even if the result is not optimal. In Strong opinions on hot topics, a dentist becomes a pundit to make a living with his absurd but controversial comments.

— The world is advancing opportunistically in many ways. In the past, the main struggle was to fill one's belly. We knew what we wanted: enough money to eat and dress. Now we ask ourselves something else: what else can we achieve? Let me tell you an absurd story that may not be of any importance, but it has to do with what I wanted to comment on in relation to this topic. The last time I went to New York, my wife asked me to buy her perfume. She wrote down exactly which one it was and where she could find it. When I asked for that perfume, the shopkeeper said to me: "Do you really love your wife?" I replied yes. "Then why do you only buy her one perfume?" she continued. "Why don't you get this box that contains eight different fragrances? Your wife deserves to wear a different perfume depending on the occasion: when she wants to be sexy, when it's spring, when she goes to a museum, when she drives a car...". My opinion on all this is that social networks and artificial intelligence are dismantling our selves.

Why does he/she say it?

— To answer this question, I have to tell you another story. At 14 years old, my older brother took me aside, took me to the bathroom, and said to me: "Look me in the eyes, what I'm about to tell you will affect the rest of your life." Then he showed me a bottle of Aqua Velva aftershave and another of Paco Rabanne. I chose Paco Rabanne. From then on, whenever I went out at night, I smoked weed, got high, and woke up the next day not knowing who I was, the smell of Paco Rabanne aftershave allowed me to remember that I was Edgar. When I was young, therefore, my identity had consistency.

Now not anymore?

— It is more threatened, because social networks and artificial intelligence have taken it upon themselves to dismantle our self. When we enter Instagram, a video appears of a cat with a pirate hat sailing down a river lost in a place we don't know, and right after that a rapper appears telling us to kill the police, and then a group of people drowning in China and the offer of a product you can buy at half price. You can believe that you are experiencing very diverse sensations in a short time, but an hour after this racket you feel empty. This is a personal example, but we can also apply it on a universal scale. If in 1941 we had woken Winston Churchill at midnight and asked him what was most important in the world, he would have told us: "Defeat Hitler". In 1942 he would have answered the same. And in 1943. The answer was clear and always the same. If today you ask Donald Trump if he will bomb Iran tomorrow, he will tell you that he doesn't know yet.

Because this way you always have time to change your mind.

— Because that way it's always time to change your mind.

The characters in many of the stories in The Blues of the End of the World often find themselves lost in this hyper-fast and changing world, without continuity.

— We cannot aspire to row against the current, but rather to float in the middle of the river, and let ourselves be carried wherever. Unfortunately, today's world carries us to horrible, depressing, violent, and terrifying places.

One of the latest stories, Conviction, begins on October 7, 2023, the day Israel suffered a major terrorist attack in which over a thousand people died and many others were kidnapped. As a result, Israel began a devastating war against Gaza, in which more than 72,000 people have died. The protagonist of Conviction is ultra-Orthodox and dedicates himself to praying for the return of the kidnapped. In the few moments of calm, he goes to the supermarket to buy frozen schnitzels and kosher sushi. How did this story occur to him?

— I started it a month after October 7th. During that time I hadn't been able to write anything. My wife and I would visit communities of people who had been evacuated as a consequence of the attacks. We took care of their children or told them stories, read books to the elderly, and set up yoga classes. We got involved in all sorts of strange activities that seemed useful to us. I also gave many interviews to the foreign press. There were journalists who told me that October 7th had never happened. That they hadn't destroyed anything, nor were there any fatalities... I was taking care of the people who had survived, but I have a documentary filmmaker friend who, if I asked him, would send me videos of all the terrible things that happened those days. If a journalist told me that a decapitation was fake, I would ask my friend if he had the video, and if he sent it to me, I would forward it directly, without looking at it. I am of the opinion that seeing atrocities does not help us in any way.

They must have been days of many contrasts.

— Exactly. Missiles were falling near us while someone we knew had been kidnapped in Gaza and would shortly thereafter be murdered. The brother and husband of an ex-girlfriend of mine were killed. Things like these cannot leave me indifferent. At the same time, I have an ultra-Orthodox sister who lives in the Mea Shearim neighborhood who has 11 children and more than 50 grandchildren – I am not exaggerating – who, shortly after October 7th, called me to talk to me about what was happening as if it were news she had just seen on CNN. It made me very angry. She lives in Jerusalem, in an isolated community, and none of her children have had to go to war because they are ultra-Orthodox... Even so, how could she experience such events from such a distance? First, I was unpleasant to her. Then I told her she had to hang up the phone because all of that affected me so much. Then I did what I always do when I get worked up.

Write a story?

— Writing a story from the perspective of the one who made me furious.

Who has made him write more stories, lately?

— It is probably Benjamin Netanyahu. I have 40 stories written from his perspective. They are garbage, I admit, but even though Netanyahu is my enemy, I need to put myself in his shoes and try to humanize him.

What happened in the case of Conviction? The protagonist is this ultra-Orthodox man who has been praying for 20 years and who buys schnitzels and kosher sushi at a specific supermarket because he is in love with the cashier.

— I have a nephew who lives in Beit Xémex and who always goes to the same supermarket to buy sushi. I thought I would dedicate a story to him and I set to work. The most emotional thing that happened to me while I was working on it was that I realized that while I was explaining that the character prayed and prayed, in reality I was talking about myself.

Why?

— Writing and praying have a very important point in common. You pray because you need to communicate with God: to explain how you feel, what you are afraid of, and what you need. You write believing that what you have done, however strange it may be, will find a reader. In the story, the ultra-Orthodox protagonist is like me, because both of us hope for something almost impossible to happen: that the hostages will be released. While I was working on it, I felt as if it were 1941 and I were imagining the end of World War II.

Did he write the story because he needed fiction to be better than reality?

— I needed to invoke the prophet within me. It is not the first time I have written something that later actually happens.

Do we find any cases in this book?

— Yes. There is a story called Dog for dog starring a group of Jewish children who are the sons of settlers. After a Palestinian accidentally runs over one of their dogs, they decide to kill a Palestinian's dog. It's absurd, isn't it? "An eye for an eye, a dog for a dog," they think. Then, as they prepare to put this extreme idea into practice, one of them begins to doubt. Dog for dog ended up being part of The Blues of the End of the World, which was published in Hebrew in 2024. A few days ago I saw the news about a group of Jewish settlers who entered a Palestinian property, and after running over a sheep, they took a dog and beat it almost to death. What happened in real life was worse than what I had imagined. I felt very bad, as if I had been propagandizing for Israel in my story, because in the end one of the children manages to get the dog they wanted to kill spared.

The dog of the Jewish children is named Smadja as a tribute to a judo champion.

— I named him like that because I wanted a human name for the dog. A few days after publishing The Blues of the End of the WorldI named him that because I wanted a human name for the dog. A few days after publishing

In another of the stories from The Blues of the End of the World, a writer —who could be yourself— has to find the ideal words for a dead friend's tombstone and ends up greatly angering his mother.

— , a writer —who could be yourself— has to find the ideal words for a dead friend's tombstone and ends up greatly angering his mother.

Would such a story have been impossible to write afterwards?

— Could such a story have been impossible to write afterwards?Hostage, 2025].

And you, what funeral speech did you write?

— I didn't write any. I rejected the proposals they made me.

Why?

— Because they asked me to use my talent to cure something that I could not cure. When I said that I could not help them with that, I offered them an alternative: give a conference, tell a story to the children...

We have talked about very serious topics in this conversation, but I don't want to forget to remind readers that their stories have not lost their sense of humor, even when addressing delicate situations. There is one in which he talks about the invention of the time machine. Since traveling to the past causes weight loss, the invention becomes a success: it is a faster way to slim down than taking Ozempic.

— I had a friend who was very fat and one day started taking Ozempic. This way he no longer had to practice any sport or follow any kind of diet. Time went by and, although he lost weight, he also became depressed. Then he went to the doctor, who prescribed him antidepressants. The mix of Ozempic and antidepressants had an unusual result. My friend could no longer get erections. He went back to the doctor, who prescribed him other pills, and finally solved the problem. One day when we met I told him: "Wouldn't it have been easier to go swimming three times a week and stop eating pizza?". The story of the time machine has to do with how we believe we use science and technology to improve our lives, but in reality we do it to make things easier for ourselves. And that doesn't mean improving our lives. There are people who come and tell you: "Thanks to artificial intelligence you won't have to do anything and you'll have time for everything." These same people, if they had time, would ask artificial intelligence how they should use it. We cannot afford to lose our critical sense, now less than ever.