Israeli writer Amos Oz received the annual international Franz Kafka Prize for literature at the Old Town Hall in Prague yesterday.
The jury said Oz was first of all a marvellous storyteller.
He said yesterday the kibbutz was the best university of life.
Oz joined a kibbutz when he was 14 and lived there until he was 47.
The Franz Kafka Prize has been awarded by the Prague-based Franz Kafka Society since 2001. The previous winners include Austrian author Elfriede Jelinek, British playwright Harold Pinter, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and French poet Yves Bonnefoy. Last year the prize went to Czech author Daniela Hodrova.
Oz is a prominent Israeli writer, essayist and political journalist. He teaches literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba.
In 1965, his first collection of short stories Where the Jackals Howl appeared. Since then, he has published a book almost every year. A number of Oz's books and short stories have appeared in Czech, most recently, A Tale of Love and Darkness, in 2009.
Oz received a bronze statue, which is a small version of the Franz Kafka monument in Prague by artist Jaroslav Rona.
Reading Kafka changed his world as he felt nothing in the world was certain, Oz said at the award-giving ceremony.
Oz has been one of the promoters of the two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He believes Palestinians and Israelis need a fair divorce.
Oz recalled yesterday that Czechs and Slovaks managed to part without bloodshed.