A Journey to The End of The Millennium - Hardcover

Yehoshua, A.B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1870015711 ISBN 13: 9781870015714

Publisher: Halban Publishers, 1999

Synopsis

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.B. Yehoshua has imaginatively recreated a medieval world (from North Africa to Paris, from Spain to Germany) with its merchant trade in great depth and sensuous detail. His evocation of one man's love is lyrical, erotic even.

About this title

Review

One would think from all the brouhaha about the imminent arrival of Y2K that the world had never experienced a change of millennium. In fact, we've been through it all before, as A.B. Yehoshua reminds us in his novel, A Journey to the End of the Millennium. The year is 999 and the protagonist is Ben Attar, a North African Jewish merchant who has, for many years, been in profitable partnership with his nephew Abulafia and a Muslim trader named Abu Lutfi. But when Abulafia marries a German Jew who disapproves of his uncle's two wives, the partnership is suddenly dissolved and Ben Attar finds himself out of business.

Abulafia's repudiation of his uncle sets the stage for Ben Attar's journey into the heart of Europe at the turn of the millennium. Accompanied by a rabbi, both his wives, and Abu Lutfi, our hero sails to Paris, where he hopes to persuade his nephew's wife that his marriage to two women is both legally and morally permissible. Yehoshua's tale is more than just a travelog through the Europe of the 10th century; it is also a meditation on religion, law, and the differences between the European Sephardic tradition and that of the Middle Eastern Ashkenazic Jews--differences that echo the current social and ideological conflicts within Israel today.

About the Author

A. B. YEHOSHUA is one of Israel's preeminent writers. His novels include Journey to the End of the Millenium, The Liberated Bride, and A Woman in Jerusalem, which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2007. He lives in Haifa.

About this edition

• Publisher: Halban Publishers
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1870015711
• ISBN 13: 9781870015714
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352