Judas

Short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize A New York Times Editors' Choice New York Times, Paperback Row "[A] magnificent novel... Oz pitches the book's heartbreak and humanism perfectly from first page to last, as befits a writer who understands how vital a political role a novelist can play."--New York Times Book Review "In this novel of nineteen-sixties Jerusalem, Shmuel Ash, lovelorn graduate student and lukewarm socialist, abandons his thesis ('Jewish Views of Jesus') to care for a frail, elderly Zionist living in a funeral villa. There he meets a cynical beauty who lost both her father and husband in the mid-century wars, backroom and battlefield, that defined the contours of Israeli statehood. The novel has a clear message; as Shmuel says, 'All the power in the world cannot transform someone who hates you into someone who likes you.' But Oz tempers this didactic edge by making Shmuel a hapless figure--with walking stick, inhalers, and baby-powdered beard--unimpressive to the aristocratic recluses he's stumbled among."--The New Yorker, "Briefly Noted" "A novel of ideas...Beautifully translated by Nicholas de Lange."--New York Review of Books "Even an annus horribilis can be redeemed if it contains a new Amos Oz novel."--The Forward "An intellectual biography of Judas, a tender narrative of love and heartbreak, and a thoughtful consideration of the stakes and limits of Israeli politics."--The Christian Century "Oz's prose, as captured in English by de Lange, illuminates an exquisite coming-of-age romance that also manages to comment on the origins of Zionism, the perception of the Israeli left and what it truly means to be a traitor."--Jewish Telegraphic Agency "Like Oz's nonfiction "A Tale of Love and Darkness," "Judas" grapples with big, historical matters for which there are no simple answers: the founding of Israel and the founding of Christianity. Both remain rich subjects to explore today."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Best Books of 2016" "A scintillating novel...Many-layered, thought-provoking and - in its love story - delicate as a chrysalis, this is an old-fashioned novel of ideas that is strikingly and compellingly modern."--Observer "Oz has written one of the most triumphant novels of his career."--The Forward "Judas is a vibrant specimen of a nearly extinct species, the novel of ideas...A fascinating coming-of-age story."--San Francisco Chronicle "The novel gives a finely vivid and sympathetic picture of a Jerusalem (and an Israel) that has largely disappeared...This book is compassionate as well as painfully provocative, a contribution to some sort of deeper listening to the dissonances emerging from deep within the politics and theology of Israel and Palestine."--New Statesman "A very absorbing addition to [Oz's] remarkable oeuvre."--The Guardian "A masterpiece: command of the word, mastery of construct, the ability to stimulate all the senses of the reader."--La Repubblica "Challenging, complex and strangely compelling... The ideas at the novel's centre have g --