by A. B. Yehoshua

A.B. Yehoshua, one of Israel’s leading writers, was born in Jerusalem in 1936. Unlike most prominent Israeli cultural figures, he was born into a Sephardi, rather than an Ashkenazi, Jewish family. His father’s family has lived in Jerusalem for five generations; his mother came from a wealthy Francophone Moroccan family whose members immigrated to Palestine in 1932. Yehoshua attended a secular “Hebrew” gymnasium, rather than a traditional Sephardi school, then studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He currently lives in Haifa and since 1972 has taught literature at Haifa University. Yehoshua published his first short-story collection (Death of the Old Man) in 1962 and his first novel (The Lover) in 1977. The novel is the genre for which he would become best known, though Yehoshua has also written numerous essays and plays. His fourth novel, the complex Mr. Mani, purports...