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Netanyahu critic wins prestigious literary award

Winner of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, Israeli writer David Grossman has battled the occupation for decades.
LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 14:  Author, David Grossman (Israel) poses for a photo after being announced the winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2017 for his book 'A Horse Walks into a Bar' at Victoria & Albert Museum on June 14, 2017 in London, England.  (Photo by Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images)
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At around 8 p.m. on June 15, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally deigned to release a message of congratulations in honor of author David Grossman for winning the prestigious Man Booker Prize a day earlier. Grossman is the first Israeli to win what is often considered the most prestigious literary award in the world after the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He received the prize for his novel "A Horse Walks into a Bar," the story of a 57-year-old standup comic from Jerusalem, the only child of Holocaust survivors and something of a loser. First published in 2014 and since translated into 22 languages, the book describes a local Israeli reality that is not political.

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