David Grossman was born in Jerusalem. He is the elder of two brothers. His mother, Michaella, was born inMandatory Palestine; his father, Yitzhak,emigrated fromDynów inPoland with his widowed mother at the age of nine. His mother's family wasLabor Zionist and poor. His grandfather paved roads in theGalilee and supplemented his income by buying and selling rugs. His maternal grandmother, a manicurist, left Poland after police harassment. Accompanied by her son and daughter, she immigrated toPalestine and worked as a maid in wealthy neighborhoods.
Grossman's father was a bus driver, then a librarian. Among the literature he brought home for his son to read were the stories ofSholem Aleichem.[1] At age 9, Grossman won a national competition on knowledge of Sholem Aleichem. He worked as a child actor for the national radio and continued working for theIsrael Broadcasting Authority for nearly 25 years.[2]
Grossman lives inMevasseret Zion on the outskirts of Jerusalem. He is married to Michal Grossman, a child psychologist. They had three children, Yonatan, Ruthi, and Uri. Uri was a tank-commander in theIsrael Defense Forces, and was killed in action on the last day of the2006 Lebanon War.[3] Uri's life was later celebrated in Grossman's bookFalling Out of Time.
After university, Grossman became an anchor onKol Yisrael, Israel's national broadcasting service. In 1988 he was sacked for refusing to bury the news that the Palestinian leadership had declared its own state and conceded Israel's right to exist.[1]
He addressed the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in his 2008 novel,To the End of the Land. Since that book's publication he has written a children's book, anopera for children and several poems.[1] His 2014 book,Falling Out of Time, deals with the grief of parents in the aftermath of their children's death.[4] In 2017, he was awarded theMan Booker International Prize in conjunction with his frequent collaborator and translator,Jessica Cohen, for his novelA Horse Walks Into a Bar.[5]
Grossman is an outspokenleft-wing peace activist.[1] He has been described byThe Economist as epitomising Israel's left-leaning cultural elite.[6]
Initially supportive of Israel's action during the2006 Lebanon War on the grounds of self-defense, on August 10, 2006, he and fellow authorsAmos Oz andA.B. Yehoshua held a press conference at which they strongly urged the government to agree to a ceasefire that would create the basis for a negotiated solution, saying: "We had a right to go to war. But things got complicated. ... I believe that there is more than one course of action available."[1]
Two days later, Grossman's 20-year-old son Uri, a Staff Sergeant in the401st Armored Brigade, was killed in southern Lebanon when his tank was hit by an anti-tank missile shortly before the ceasefire came into effect.[7] Grossman explained that the death of his son did not change his opposition to Israel's policy towards the Palestinians.[1] Although Grossman had carefully avoided writing about politics, in his stories, if not his journalism, the death of his son prompted him to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in greater detail. This appeared in his 2008 bookTo The End of the Land.[1]
Two months after his son's death, Grossman addressed a crowd of 100,000 Israelis who had gathered to mark the anniversary of the assassination ofYitzhak Rabin in 1995. He denouncedEhud Olmert's government for a failure of leadership and he argued that reaching out to the Palestinians was the best hope for progress in the region:"Of course I am grieving, but my pain is greater than my anger. I am in pain for this country and for what you [Olmert] and your friends are doing to it."[1]
About his personal link to the war, Grossman said: "There were people who stereotyped me, who considered me this naive leftist who would never send his own children into the army, who didn't know what life was made of. I think those people were forced to realise that you can be very critical of Israel and yet still be an integral part of it; I speak as a reservist in the Israeli army myself.[1]
In 2010 Grossman, his wife, and her family attended demonstrations against the spread ofIsraeli settlements. While attending weekly demonstrations inSheikh Jarrah inEast Jerusalem against Jewish settlers taking over houses in Palestinian neighbourhoods, he was assaulted by police. When asked by a reporter forThe Guardian about how a renowned writer could be beaten, he replied: "I don't know if they know me at all."[1]
In an interview withla Repubblica in 2025, Grossman said he believed Israel was committinggenocide in Gaza.[8] Grossman also said he remains convinced that "the curse of Israel began with the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967". A few days later, Member of KnessetOfer Cassif was forcibly removed from the podium of the Israeli parliament for quoting Grossman's statements.[9]
In 2015, Grossman withdrew his candidacy for theIsrael Prize for Literature after Prime MinisterBinyamin Netanyahu tried to remove two of the judging panel who he claimed were "anti-Zionist".[6] He was awarded the prize in 2018.[10]
The Zigzag Kid [יש ילדים זיג זג / Yesh yeladim zigzag, 1994]. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1997,ISBN0-374-52563-3 – won two prizes in Italy: the Premio Mondello in 1996, and the PremioGrinzane Cavour in 1997.
Be My Knife [שתהיי לי הסכין / She-tihyi li ha-sakin, 1998]. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001,ISBN0-374-29977-3
The Yellow Wind [הזמן הצהוב / Ha-Zeman ha-tsahov, 1987]. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1988,ISBN0-374-29345-7
Sleeping on a Wire: Conversations with Palestinians in Israel [נוכחים נפקדים / Nokhehim Nifkadim, 1992]. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1993,ISBN0-374-17788-0
Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years after Oslo [מוות כדרך חיים / Mavet ke-derech khayyim, 2003]. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003,ISBN0-374-10211-2
Lion’s honey: the myth of Samson [דבש אריות / Dvash arayiot, 2005]. Edinburgh; New York: Canongate, 2006,ISBN1-84195-656-2
Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008,ISBN978-0-312-42860-0
The Thinking Heart: Essays on Israel and Palestine Jonathan Cape (Penguin Random House), 2024,ISBN9781787335509
