Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes

by Tamar Yellin

Overview

Deeply melancholy with a streak of dark humor, award-winning author Tamar Yellin presents this haunting collection of linked stories that examine the heart of human longing and ask the question: Where do we belong?

Taking its imagery from the legend of the exiled ten tribes of Israel, Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes follows the life-journey of an enigmatic narrator who encounters a series of displaced persons, bringing to light the narrator's own remarkable wanderlust. With each encounter the narrator inevitably moves on, dreaming of home, unable to resist the lure of the world's labyrinth…

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312379131
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/29/2009
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Tamar Yellin received the Pusey and Ellerton Prize for Biblical Hebrew from Oxford University, and has worked as a teacher and lecturer in Judaism. Her first novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher, was awarded the 2007 Sami Rohr Prize for Literature from the Jewish Book Council, the Ribalow Prize from Hadassah Magazine and was short-listed for the Wingate Prize from Jewish Quarterly. She lives in Yorkshire, England.

Editorial Reviews

Serenly crafted stories...Each mournful, startling portrait proves that award-winning Yellin is a stylist to watch.” —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

In Yellin's 10 serenely crafted stories, the plight of the wandering Jew is manifested in various outsiders, adventurers or those who are simply restless and homesick. Each brief tale is named for one of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, exiled in Assyria and scattered across the globe according to the Old Testament. The peripatetic narrator's first encounter with wanderlust is her world-traveling Uncle Edras, a swashbuckling version of her bookish father who claims his brother is a bum. While her father is content with his armchair search for the Lost Tribes' fate, the girl is smitten by travel. As she grows up and makes her way in the world, she meets memorable kindred spirits: Professor G., a polyglot whose longing for his lost language eventually renders him mute; an old lady who fled her family home to sail abroad 40 years ago, but never got farther than the port; or the narrator's sickly 12-year-old pupil, Jacky Mendoza, who does not feel he inhabits his own body. Each mournful, startling portrait proves that award-winning Yellin (Kafka in Brontëland and Other Stories) is a stylist to watch. (Sept.)

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Publishers Weekly

According to legend, the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel were exiled by the Assyrians and disappeared beyond the River Sambatyon. In a series of ten connected contemporary stories, each named for one of the lost tribes, noted Israeli author Yellin (The Genizah of the House of Shepher) fashions powerful imagery of the notion of exile, the wandering Jew, and the search for meaningful language, often using roving and rootless characters. The narrator in "Reuben" is a young girl fascinated by her strange, wandering uncle, who on his infrequent visits trades talismans with her; she later learns from her father that he is a deceitful man. In "Simeon," our somewhat older narrator is on a Mediterranean cruise with her parents that turns out badly, with much lost-at-sea description. In "Dan," a book dealer tries to barter his stock away to the narrator's father while searching for that special book. A tale of a woman who has left her home to live in a remote northern port is the perfect depiction of loneliness. Our narrator, too, is bitten by wanderlust, always seeking, never finding, and searching to belong. Yellin brilliantly captures mood in time and place; her stories are true gems. Recommended for all libraries.
—Molly Abramowitz

Library Journal