The Love of Zion

Abraham Mapu (1808–1867) is one of the first, and finest, Hebrew novelists. Heavily influenced by a wide range of sources—the Bible, the Romantic novelists, and renewed pride in ancient Jewish history— his works recalls the writing of Flaubert. His first novel, The Love of Zion , published in 1853, received immediate acclaim and sixteen editions later, remains popular to this day. This English edition also features selections of Mapu’s others novels, as well as an introduction to his life and work by David Patterson of Oxford University.