Author(s): Olga Tokarczuk

Novel | Translated fiction | Eastern Europe | Poland | Historical

As new ideas—and a new unrest—begin to sweep the Continent, a young Jew of mysterious origins arrives in a village in Poland. Visited by what seem to be ecstatic experiences, Jacob Frank casts a spell that attracts a fervent following. 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 rumours of his sect’s secret rituals and the spread of his iconoclastic beliefs. The story of Frank—a real historical figure, a divisive yet charismatic man—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.

Review: 'A magnificent writer.' * Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate 2015 *
'Olga Tokarczuk is a masterful storyteller who challenges expectations of what a story can be.' * Age *
'As for Ms. Tokarczuk, there's no doubt: She's a gifted, original writer, and the appearance of her novels in English is a welcome development.' * Wall Street Journal *
'One among a very few signal European novelists of the past quarter-century.' * Economist *
'It is hard to imagine a more perfect pairing of writer and subject: Frank is complex, contradictory, his presence at once all-consuming and impossible to pin down; Tokarczuk is brilliant, sensitive, encyclopaedic, like a writer dreamed of by Borges. Together with Croft they form a kind of trinity, three figures combining to form one indivisible body.' * Alice Whitmore, Monthly *
'Impressively sprawling story... With language that's engaging, erudite, and spiced with witty colloquialisms and wonderful turns of phrase via Jennifer Croft's supple translation, Tokarczuk explores the state of being an outsider in places with fixed cultural boundaries...A wealth of fine quotidian detail and brilliantly connected narrative threads draw the reader in. With its length, dozens of characters, and theological discussions, Tokarczuk's panoramic tale requires commitment, but it is masterful.' * Booklist (Starred review) *
'Tokarczuk shows impressive skill in recreating an entire era and world, which ranges from Poland to Smyrna and Vienna. Yet her real genius lies in the cast of characters she has conjured up; dozens, each fully realised, from an emperor downwards...She is also ambitious in her willingness to ask (and sometimes answer) extraordinarily large questions through these character studies...Holding it all together for 900 pages is incredible, but that is not what makes this book great. Tokarczuk, unafraid and ambitious, creates a very fallible messiah, yet makes it seem reasonable and human to believe in his divinity. That is a kind of literary miracle.' * Antonia Senior, The Times *
'In Tokarczuk's telling this epic of myth and history is a celebration of cultural diversity, a plea for tolerance and-notwithstanding its impeccably researched historical setting-a contemporary story of borders, refugees and migration...Tokarczuk's determination in this tremendous work to recast and restore to Poland's past its vanished Jewish culture has never been more necessary.' * Catherine Taylor, Prospect *
'Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk has made an incredible return with The Books of Jacob. The ambition of this novel is striking, its narrative structure complex as we trace the tale of the divisive figure of Jacob Frank - a real-life religious chameleon who exerts a terrifying power over his disciples. A demanding, yet breathtaking read, told from a range of perspectives.' * Happy Mag *
'[In] Jennifer Croft's beautiful, lithe translation...Tokarczuk tells the story of [Jacob] Frank by ingeniously interweaving narrators both reliable and unreliable-and it is here that The Books of Jacob spreads its majestic wings and lifts from fact into fiction...In each of her books, Tokarczuk approaches a subject from the periphery, as though she too were a foreigner. The Books of Jacob [is] her masterpiece.' * Jewish Quarterly *
'[A] visionary novel ... Tokarczuk is wrestling with the biggest philosophical themes: the purpose of life on earth, the nature of religion, the possibility of redemption, the fraught and terrible history of eastern European Jewry. With its formidable insistence on rendering an alien world with as much detail as possible, the novel reminded me at times of Paradise Lost. The vividness with which it's done is amazing. At a micro-level, she sees things with a poetic freshness.... The Books of Jacob, which is so demanding and yet has so much to say about the issues that rack our times, will be a landmark in the life of any reader with the appetite to tackle it.' * Marcel Theroux, Guardian *