The Books of Jacob

A NEW YORKER "ESSENTIAL READ"

"Just as awe-inspiring as the Nobel judges claimed." - The Washington Post

"Olga Tokarczuk is one of our greatest living fiction writers. . . This could well be a decade-defining book akin to Bolaño's 2666." -AV Club

"Sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit. . . The comedy in this novel blends, as it does in life, with genuine tragedy." -Dwight Garner, The New York Times

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, TIME, THE NEW YORKER, AND NPR

The Nobel Prize-winner's richest, most sweeping and ambitious novel yet follows the comet-like rise and fall of a mysterious, messianic religious leader as he blazes his way across eighteenth-century Europe.

In the mid-eighteenth century, as new ideas--and a new unrest--begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Before long, he has changed not only his name but his persona; visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a charismatic spell that attracts an increasingly fervent following. In the decade to come, Frank will traverse the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires with throngs of disciples in his thrall as he reinvents himself again and again, converts to Islam and then Catholicism, is pilloried as a heretic and revered as the Messiah, and wreaks havoc on the conventional order, Jewish and Christian alike, with scandalous rumors of his sect's secret rituals and the spread of his increasingly iconoclastic beliefs. The story of Frank--a real historical figure around whom mystery and controversy swirl to this day--is the perfect canvas for the genius and unparalleled reach of Olga Tokarczuk. Narrated through the perspectives of his contemporaries--those who revere him, those who revile him, the friend who betrays him, the lone woman who sees him for what he is--The Books of Jacob captures a world on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence.

In a nod to books written in Hebrew, The Books of Jacob is paginated in reverse, beginning on p. 955 and ending on p. 1 - but read traditionally, front cover to back.

Author: Olga Tokarczuk
Publisher: Riverhead Books
Published: 02/01/2022
Pages: 992
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 2.88lbs
Size: 9.58h x 6.61w x 1.89d
ISBN: 9780593087480


Award: Kirkus Prize - Finalist
Award: Man Booker International Prize - Finalist
Award: National Book Awards - Nominee


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/01/2021 pg. 8
Booklist 12/01/2021 pg. 30
Publishers Weekly 12/20/2021
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2022
Shelf Awareness 02/01/2022
Library Journal 04/02/2022 pg. 1

About the Author
Olga Tokarczuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Book International Prize, among many other honors. She is the author of a dozen works of fiction, two collections of essays, and a children's book; her work has been translated into fifty languages.