Introduction: Amos Oz’s two pens

ABSTRACT Often regarded as the country’s leading intellectual, the Israeli novelist and political essayist Amos Oz (1939–2018) was fond of describing himself as using two different pens, the first used to write work of prose and fiction, and the other – to criticize the government and advocate for a political change. The idea behind this special issue is to revisit the two pens parable by bringing together scholars from various disciplines to assess Amos Oz’s dual role in Israeli culture and society as an immensely popular novelist and a leading public intellectual. Next to offering an intellectual portrait, this introduction highlights some of Oz’s seminal works, examines their reception, revisits key political and literary debates he was involved in, and traces some of the connections between the two realms of his activity.