A JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM –
A. B. YEHOSHUA
A JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE MILLENNIUM
A. B. Yehoshua
trans. by Nicholas de
Lange
Hardback, February 1999
£16.99, 352pp, 1 870015 71 1
A. B. Yehoshua was nominated for
The year is 999 A.D. Christians in Europe are preparing themselves for the
arrival of the Messiah at the millennium and religious fervour is in the
air. Sailing from the North African port of Tangier to a small, distant
town called Paris are a Jewish merchant, Ben Attar, his two beloved wives
and his Arab partner, Abu Lutfi.
They have come for a meeting with their third partner the widower, Raphael
Abulafia who has been forced to turn his back on their previous trading
partnership because of his new wife’s distrust of the dual marriage of
Ben Attar. The latter turns this annual trading voyage into a personal
quest to legitimise his second wife, restore his honour and, equally
important, to show others the richness and humanity in his way of life.
A confrontation ensues between people of different cultures whose ways of
living and loving are so different, and yet who are of the same religion,
believe in the same God and in the same morality. Thus we enter a profound
human drama whose moral conflicts of fidelity and desire resonate deeply
with our times.
A. B. Yehoshua has imaginatively recreated a medieval world with its
merchant trade in great depth and sensuous detail. His evocation of one
man’s love is lyrical, erotic even, and A Journey to the End of the
Millennium will rank with the best of Yehoshua’s work.
“A. B. Yehoshua is an old-fashioned master, without stylistic
pyrotechnics or needless experimentation. His chief asset is his belief in
a powerful story deftly delivered.”
Times
Literary Supplement
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