Avraham B. Yehoshua (b. 1936) has been in the forefront of Israeli fiction writers and intellectuals since the appearance of his first book, Mot ha-Zaqen (The Death ofthe Old Man, 1962), a collection of disturbingly allegorical tales in the vein of Kafka and Agnon. Stories such as “Massaʿ ha-ʿErev shel Yatir” (The Night Journey of Yatir) and “Shelosha Yamim va-Yeled” (Three Days and a Child) portray a welling-up of violent emotions, presumably due to Israel’s culture of denial and repression during its first two decades of statehood. “Mul ha-Yeʿarot” (Facing the Forests) portrays …