A short life of the author
Abraham B. Yehoshua (1936–2022) was born on 9 December 1936 in Jerusalem to a fifth-generation Sephardic Jerusalem family. He studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He lived in Haifa, where he was a professor of literature at the University of Haifa.
Life and Career
The Lover (1977) — about a man who encourages his wife’s lover to search for a missing soldier, set during the Yom Kippur War — was his first major novel. A Late Divorce (1982) — a Faulknerian polyphonic novel about an Israeli family — established his reputation.
Mr. Mani (1990) — structured as five conversations, each set in a different period (1982, 1944, 1918, 1899, 1848), each revealing more about the Mani family’s history, read in reverse chronological order, with only one side of each conversation audible — is his masterwork and one of the most formally inventive Israeli novels. It traces the Sephardic Jewish experience from Ottoman Jerusalem to the founding of the state.
A Journey to the End of the Millennium (1997) was set in the year 999. A Woman in Jerusalem (2004) — about a company ordered to take responsibility for the body of an unidentified employee killed in a suicide bombing — won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The Tunnel (2018) was his final novel.
He died on 14 June 2022.
Key Works
- Mr. Mani (1990)
- A Late Divorce (1982)
- A Woman in Jerusalem (2004)
Collecting Yehoshua
Hebrew editions are the true firsts. English translations (Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin) bring $10–$25.