Minotaur

by Benjamin Tammuz, Mildred Budny (Translator), Kim Parfitt (Translator)

Overview

“With echoes of Kafka and Conrad,” the acclaimed Israeli author of Castle in Spain offers “a provocative, spare, slow-to-unfold mystery of character” (Kirkus Reviews).

On the day of his forty-first birthday, Israeli secret agent Alexander Abramov encounters a beautiful young redhead on a city bus. He immediately recognizes her as the woman he has been searching for all his life, the one he has loved forever. Though they have never met, he is certain this young woman named Thea is an essential part of his life’s destiny.
Using all the tricks of his trade and communicating through anonymous letters, Abramov takes control of Thea’s life without ever revealing his identity. Soon, Abramov’s desperate, dangerous love for a woman half his age consumes everything in its path: time, distance, and rival suitors. And for Thea, keeping her lover safe from the amorous “Mr. Anonymous” becomes an obsession of her own. Only Abramov’s own story, of a life conditioned by isolation, distrust, violence, and murder, can explain his devastating manipulation of the woman he professes to love.
Hailed by Graham Greene as “the best novel of the year” upon its initial release in 1981, Minotaur is a highly inventive literary thriller.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609451165
Publisher:	Europa Editions, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/07/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	185
Sales rank:	897,991
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Benjamin Tammuz was born in Russia in 1919 and immigrated to Palestine with his family at the age of five. He was a sculptor as well as a diplomat, a writer, and, for many years, literary editor of the Ha’aretz newspaper. His numerous novels and short stories have been widely translated from the Hebrew and have received several literary prizes. He died in 1989.

Translated from the Hebrew by Mildred Budny and Kim Parfitt. 

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A novel about the expectations and compromises that humans create for themselves . . . Very much in the manner of William Faulkner and Lawrence Durrell.” —The New York Times

"With echoes of Kafka and Conrad, Israeli novelist Tammuz has fashioned a provocative, spare, slow-to-unfold mystery of character." — Kirkus Review

“If the doomed atmosphere that hovers over the romances in Greene and Le Carré is present in Minotaur, so is a flavor that can only be described as more continental, and prose more sensuous than fits into the schemes of those two writers.” —Boston Phoenix

Editorial Reviews

Secret agents are not known for their tender feelings, and perhaps for good reason. Tammuz's spare, stern novel considers the question of a secret agent in love and the odds do not favor a happy ending. First published in 1985, and set in Europe and Israel, it follows a young woman of extraordinary loveliness and the three men who are captivated by her. Tammuz (The Orchard) is a deft storyteller, drawing out elaborate histories and conveying both place and character with remarkable efficiency. He paces the exposure of information so effectively that despite knowing the basic events in the first 40 pages, the possibility of clarity and understanding draw us speedily through the rest of the book. The characters are attractive and intelligent, leading sophisticated lives in beautiful cities, all of which contrasts with the distinctly un-pretty story. It is a spy novel wrapped in a romance, which is to say it is much more about power and desire than it is about love, let alone tenderness. And like so many good spy novels, solving the mystery doesn't result in a happy conclusion; the Minotaur may be a lonely monster, but it's the labyrinth that will get you in the end. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Minotaur

"A masterpiece...A great novel of love and desire."
–The Nervous Breakdown

“A novel about the expectations and compromises that humans create for themselves...Very much in the manner of William Faulkner and Lawrence Durrell.”
—The New York Times

"With echoes of Kafka and Conrad, Israeli novelist Tammuz has fashioned a provocative, spare, slow-to-unfold mystery of character."
—Kirkus Review

"A largely unrecognized masterpiece."
—Three Monkeys Online

“If the doomed atmosphere that hovers over the romances in Greene and Le Carré is present in Minotaur, so is a flavor that can only be described as more continental, and prose more sensuous than fits into the schemes of those two writers.”
—Boston Phoenix

"The best novel of the year."
—Graham Greene, author of The Quiet American 

From the Publisher

Released in 1989 to critical acclaim, Tammuz's novel weaves a story of a veteran Israeli spy who falls in love with a young woman and uses all his skills to win her without revealing his identity. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal