Joseph and His Brothers

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by Thomas Mann,

Translated by John E. Woods

Everyman's Library: Random House

Due/Published May 2005, 1536 pages, cloth

ISBN 1400040019

Thomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts­The Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph the Provider­as a unified narrative, a "mythological novel" of Joseph's fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Deploying lavish, persuasive detail, Mann conjures for us the world of patriarchs and pharaohs, the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Palestine, and the universal force of human love in all its beauty, desperation, absurdity, and pain. The result is a brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and epic grandeur.

Now the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us a definitive new English version of Joseph and His Brothers that is worthy of Mann's achievement, revealing the novel's exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices

"Very deep is the well of the past."