Sunday 14 October 2007

Amos Oz's book on fanaticism added to Swedish school curriculum


Sweden is planning to distribute to students aged 17-18 Amos Oz’s book How to cure a fanatic to help them understand the complexities of the Israeli-Arab conflict other than through media reporting, usually heavily biased against Israel. The book will be included the school curriculum and the Government hopes that the initiative will be extended to other European Union member states. Y Net reports:

“The Swedish educational system has decided to distribute a book by Israeli author Amos Oz to 115,000 eleventh graders throughout the country. The purpose is to instil tolerance, to stamp out radicalism and to introduce Swedish youth to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a different angle.

The booklet, How to cure a fanatic (which was not published in Hebrew, but publicized within the framework of Oz's articles) was translated into Swedish by the Bonnier publishing house, the largest publisher in Scandinavia and the publisher of Amos Oz's books in Swedish.

The Swedish government has contacted the European Union and proposed distributing the booklet throughout EU member states as well.

Amos Oz told Yedioth Ahronoth on Tuesday evening that the project came as a surprise, "because no one discussed it with me in advance, I think it is important that young kids at high schools read about fanaticism. It will help them better understand our conflict."”

Amos Oz was awarded the 2007 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature.
Photo by Mariusz Kubik

1 comment:

SnoopyTheGoon said...

It will be interesting to see who reads it.