The Woman Who Wrote the Bible - Paperback

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by Moacyr Scliar (Author), Heath Wing (Translator), Ilan Stavans (Introduction by)

The bestselling Brazilian satire, now available in English for the first time.

Moacyr Scliar was the preeminent literary voice of the Jewish immigrant experience in modern Brazil. Now his most ambitiously satirical and irreverent novel is at last translated into English, offering not just a significant contribution to Latin American and Jewish literature but to world literature as well.

In a past-life therapy session, a mysterious woman makes a remarkable breakthrough when she discovers that in a previous life she was one of King Solomon's seven hundred wives. In language that hilariously mixes modern jargon and biblical diction, she sets out to tell the story of her earlier incarnation three thousand years in the past, revealing how she went from a provincial nobody to a queen.

Yet being royalty isn't all it's cracked up to be. As the least desirable of King Solomon's wives and concubines, she is unceremoniously discarded and forgotten in his harem. But as luck would have it, she possesses a unique gift: she is a woman who knows how to read and write. Once her talent is discovered, King Solomon charges her with writing what will become one of the most important texts in human history. Along the way our nameless narrator leverages her newfound status as royal scribe to bring about her own secret agenda.

A brilliant feminist critique skewering the absurdities of patriarchy, The Woman Who Wrote the Bible is a comic masterpiece of truly biblical proportions.

Author Biography

Moacyr Scliar (19372011) was the author of numerous works of fiction, including Max and the Cats (the inspiration behind Yann Martel's Life of Pi) and The Centaur in the Garden, named one of the 100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature by the National Yiddish Book Center. His Collected Stories (UNM Press) was awarded the National Jewish Book Award.

Internationally renowned scholar, essayist, linguist, translator, editor, and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He serves as the series editor for the University of New Mexico Press's acclaimed Jewish Latin America Series.

Number of Pages: 168

Dimensions: 0.56 x 8.99 x 5.99 IN

Publication Date: March 17, 2026