The Israeli-Palestinian conflict over territory is rarely treated directly by Israeli authors. Applying a geographer's concept of "vernacular landscapes" and "political landscapes," Grumberg (Hebrew studies, U. of Texas at Austin) analyzes how literary representations of vernacular spaces in Israelis' everyday lives and identities reflect or resist political ideology. First reading how Zionist ideology has influenced views of such spaces in the fiction of Amos Oz, she then examines reactions to this mainstream Israeli conception of place in works by Castel-Bloom (a feminist/postmodern author, Yael Hoffman (a postmodern author on the diaspora), Sayed Kashua (an Israeli-Palestinian writing in Hebrew), and Ronit Matalon (a Jewish Israeli author of Egyptian origin). Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)