8 /10 1 Votes
Language English Media type Print (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-670-01821-5 Originally published 1 January 2008 Genre Historical Fiction Country United States of America | 4/5 Goodreads Publication date January 1, 2008 Pages 372 pages OCLC 123912702 Publisher Viking Press | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Characters Hanna Heath, Ozren Karaman, Serif Kamal, Stela Kamal, Lola, Judah Aryeh Similar Geraldine Brooks books, Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
People of the Book is a 2008 historical fiction novel by Geraldine Brooks. The story focuses on imagined events surrounding protagonist and real historical past of the still extant Sarajevo Haggadah, one of the oldest surviving Jewish illuminated texts.
Contents
Plot summary
The novel tells the fictional story of Hanna Heath, an Australian book conservator who is responsible for restoring the Haggadah. The story alternates between sections set in the present day with Heath and other sections showing the history of the Haggadah.
Told in reverse chronological order, the story follows the Haggadah backward in time as it travels across Europe, from war-torn Sarajevo to the book's origins. It also explains such clues as missing silver clasps, preserved butterfly remnants, and various stains and spots, which are all eventually explained as part of the manuscript's long history.
Factual background
The book's Afterword briefly explains which parts of the novel are based on fact and which are imaginary. Geraldine Brooks wrote an article for The New Yorker that provides more details about the Sarajevo Haggadah and its real-life rescuers, especially Dervis Korkut, who hid it from the Nazis. It also explains that Lola, the young Jewish guerrilla fighter in the novel, is based on a real person named Mira Papo, who was sheltered by Dervis Korkut and his wife Servet.
Critical reception
The novel has been compared with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, with USA Today calling it an erudite version of Brown's work, while other reviewers have noted that it is slower paced, that there are no cliffhangers, and that readers "are never convinced . . . (by its) contrived and cliched personal story."