The Funniest Man in the World: The Wild and Crazy Humor of Ephraim Kishon

These humorous stories by Ephraim Kishon are full of the stuff of life itself – children, dogs, neighbors, domestic appliances, plumbers, bureaucrats, swindlers, taxi drivers, publishers, media men, tax authorities, policemen, touched one and all by that spark of lunacy which makes it worth turning the page to see what happens next. “I became a satirist”, Kishon told an interviewer from the “International Herald Tribune”, “when I learned that mankind is insane”. Like all great writers, Kishon has given life to a cast of unforgettable characters. Enter Ervinke, the law-bending alter ego of Kishon himself; Tsuries, the three-eyed melon seller; Stucks, the ever-absent plumber; and Inspector Fishbaum, the scourge of tax-evaders everywhere. Although the background to many of Kishon’s stories is Israel, their hilarity is universal.