The Procedure

In the late-sixteenth century, Rabbi Jehudah Low, in order to guarantee the safety of the Jews in Prague, attempts to create a Golem by following a procedure that is outlined in a third-century Cabalist text. He succeeds, but not exactly in the way he had planned.
Four hundred years later, Victor Werker, a Dutch biologist, causes an international uproar when he creates in his laboratory a complex organic clay crystal that can reproduce and has a metabolism. He has, in effect, manufactured a primitive organism out of inorganic materials. Much of his story is told through the letters he writes, via his estranged wife, to his stillborn daughter Aurora; after his unsettling discovery, he roams the world from California to Venice, Cairo, and Jerusalem, pursued by his own inner and outer demons.

Harry Mulisch is the author of such internationally bestselling novels as The Assault, which was made into the film that won the 1987 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, and The Discovery of Heaven. He has also published short stories, essays, poetry, plays, and philosophical works.