If you enjoy reading books by Etgar Keret then you might also like the following authors:
If you like Etgar Keret's imaginative, humorous, and often surreal short stories, you'll enjoy George Saunders. Saunders blends dark humor, satire, and compassionate insight into his offbeat characters.
His collection, Tenth of December, explores human vulnerability and absurdity in unexpected and funny ways.
Miranda July writes quirky, heartfelt stories centered around everyday anxieties and oddball characters. Like Etgar Keret, she captures awkward and poignant moments with playful wit and sincerity.
Her collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You, mixes humor, tenderness, and strange turns of events to offer surprising insights into human connection.
If you're drawn to the magical realism and blending of the ordinary with the extraordinary in Etgar Keret's work, give Aimee Bender a try. Her stories combine emotional depth with surreal and whimsical elements.
A great example is her collection, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, filled with tales that are both dreamlike and emotionally resonant.
Donald Barthelme's work is playful, absurdist, and inventive, much like Keret's. If you appreciate Keret's concise and surreal style, Barthelme's experimental and humorous approach will likely appeal to you.
Check out his influential short story collection, Sixty Stories, where he turns convention upside down with witty and unconventional narratives.
Lydia Davis is known for concise and sharply-observed stories that cleverly shine a light on the strangeness of everyday life. If you enjoy the brevity and quirky insights found in Etgar Keret's stories, you'll probably appreciate Davis's minimalist style.
A notable example of her precise and imaginative writing is The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, where brevity and depth go hand-in-hand.
Haruki Murakami blends surreal situations with the ordinary lives of his characters, creating stories that feel familiar yet dream-like. His tales often explore loneliness, identity, and the mysterious aspects of daily life.
In his novel Kafka on the Shore, Murakami weaves together two separate journeys that gradually intersect, filled with talking cats, mystical events, and profound reflections.
Jonathan Safran Foer writes imaginative, playful narratives that deal deeply with memory, trauma, and the search for meaning. His style is inventive and emotionally resonant, often balancing humor with tragedy.
In Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, he tells the story of a young boy navigating grief after 9/11 — a moving, unconventional approach to storytelling that Keret fans might appreciate.
Amos Oz's writing explores human relationships within broader political and social contexts, especially focusing on Israeli society. His prose is thoughtful and clear, marked by empathy for his characters' complexities and internal struggles.
In A Tale of Love and Darkness, Oz portrays his personal and family history alongside Israel's early years, delivering emotional depth that readers of Keret will value.
Shalom Auslander offers sharp humor and satirical insights into religion, tradition, and family life. His style is witty and rebellious, often questioning cultural conventions and beliefs with biting humor.
His memoir, Foreskin's Lament, openly confronts his complicated relationship with Orthodox Judaism, showcasing the kind of daring honesty Etgar Keret fans might appreciate.
Julio Cortázar plays freely with narrative structure and reality, presenting the strange and unusual within everyday experiences. His fiction often questions the clear boundary between the real world and fantasy.
In his short story collection Blow-Up and Other Stories, Cortázar experiments with perception and reality, appealing to those who enjoy Keret's quirky and imaginative storytelling.
Kelly Link writes imaginative stories that blend ordinary life with the bizarre and surreal. She mixes everyday human emotions, humor, and unexpected twists, creating narratives both playful and unsettling.
Like Etgar Keret, Link explores themes of loneliness, relationships, and the absurd aspects of normal life. Her collection Magic for Beginners showcases this unique blend, offering quirky, surreal stories filled with wonder and strangeness.
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya is known for dark fairy tales and sharp stories rooted in realism and fantasy. Her characters often face bleak circumstances, yet there's always a quirky humor and a sense of magic behind the sadness.
Petrushevskaya shares Etgar Keret's ability to portray life's absurdities with empathy and wit. Her collection There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby is filled with haunting, beautifully strange tales that stay with you.
Daniil Kharms was a Russian author who wrote strange, absurdist short stories and comedic sketches. His style is minimalist, slightly surreal, and darkly funny, similar to Keret's playful and absurd storytelling.
He often emphasizes the randomness of life through unexpected, bizarre scenarios. His collection Today I Wrote Nothing presents absurdist tales in a sharp, concise style, effectively capturing the strange yet humorous nature of existence.
Yoko Ogawa tells stories quietly powerful in their understated strangeness. Her writing explores memory, loss, and the fragility of everyday life.
Ogawa's fiction, like Keret's, combines emotional insight with surreal moments, making her narratives quietly absorbing and unsettling.
A great example is The Housekeeper and the Professor, a novel that sensitively examines relationships and the nature of memory through its unusual central friendship.
Chilean writer Alejandro Zambra crafts concise, emotionally resonant stories and novels. His work often deals with memory, childhood, and the smaller dramas of everyday life, tinged by melancholy humor.
Fans of Etgar Keret's spare yet emotionally rich stories may appreciate Zambra's similarly tight and thoughtful prose. His novella The Private Lives of Trees beautifully captures life's quiet uncertainties and tender moments, showcasing Zambra's talent for poetic restraint.