A. B. Yehoshua's growing eminence as one of Israel's foremost literary artists has been attended by his emergence as one of the more powerful voices of the secular Zionist left. A highly self-aware writer, Yehoshua has been scrupulously deliberate in separating the intellectual pragmatism of his political writing from the imaginative structures and aesthetic integrity of his literary works. But the generic distinction between polemical essay and imaginative fiction does not preclude overlapping areas of concern as well as a common basis of values and beliefs. Consequently, Yehoshua's essays often prove to be useful means of enhancing the understanding of his fictional works.