In this radical approach to the Bible, an acclaimed Hebrew scholar and translator looks at the Old Testament with a fresh perspective.With a fundamental return to its narrative prose, Robert Alter translates this section of the Bible through the eyes of a literary critic. He considers the Bible as literary text, guiding readers to approach scripture in a profoundly thoughtful way, proving himself to be a timeless poet in his field.

An intimate portrait illuminating the life and work of Amos Oz, the award-winning Israeli writer and activistAmos Oz (1939–2018) was one of Israel’s most prolific and prominent writers, as well as a regular contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the author of dozens of novels, essay collections, and novellas written between 1965 and shortly before his death.In this first published biography of Oz, the celebrated translator, literary critic, an...

How the King James Bible has influenced the style of the American novel from Melville to Cormac McCarthyThe simple yet grand language of the King James Bible has pervaded American culture from the beginning—and its powerful eloquence continues to be felt even today. In this book, acclaimed biblical translator and literary critic Robert Alter traces some of the fascinating ways that American novelists—from Melville, Hemingway, and Faulkner to Bellow, Marilynne Robin...

“A pleasure to read. . . . Alter has given fresh life to some of the most beloved . . . books in our heritage.”—Philadelphia InquirerThe Song of Songs; Ruth; Esther; Jonah; and Daniel offer readers a range of pleasures not usually associated with the Bible. As distant in time from the Five Books of Moses as Updike is from Shakespeare, these Late Biblical books are innovative, entertaining literary works. Women often stand center stage. The Song of Songs is...

Shad Holly and Nat Towne are brought together when they are involved with a British patrol in the streets of Boston. Shad, an experienced frontier fighter, and Nat, a young actor, eventually are engaged in dangerous missions during the siege of Boston. Both are among the defenders of Breed's Hill, a name not so well known as nearby Bunker's Hill, thanks to the confusion of British army cartographers.

The largest English-language collection to date from Israel's finest poetFew poets have demonstrated as persuasively as Yehuda Amichai why poetry matters. One of the major poets of the twentieth century, Amichai created remarkably accessible poems, vivid in their evocation of the Israeli landscape and historical predicament, yet universally resonant. His are some of the most moving love poems written in any language in the past two generations—some exuberant, some p...

From a renowned literary scholar, the definitive guide to the poetry of the Hebrew Bible"Intelligent, precise and exciting" (Peter Levi, The New York Times Book Review)Renowned literary expert Robert Alter's translation of the Hebrew Bible has electrified readers worldwide. In his classic The Art of Biblical Poetry, Alter radically expands the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human crea...

A landmark event: the complete Hebrew Bible in the award-winning translation that delivers the stunning literary power of the original. A masterpiece of deep learning and fine sensibility, Robert Alter's translation of the Hebrew Bible, now complete, reanimates one of the formative works of our culture. Capturing its brilliantly compact poetry and finely wrought, purposeful prose, Alter renews the Old Testament as a source of literary power and spiritual inspiration. From the family fricti...

Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry, his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew poetry in the Bible. Updated with a new preface, myriad revisions, and passages f...

The Invention of Dialogue in the Bible is an examination of the Bible's use of dialogue, a feature of literary writing often seen in prose, drama, and verse. Perhaps best known for its use in novels, it reflects characters' temperaments, social and educational backgrounds, their psychology, and their relationships with their interlocutors—and its use is rarely acknowledged within the narratives of the Bible.Comparing a wide range of dialogue specimens in the Hebrew Bible w...

In Imagined Cities, Robert Alter traces the arc of literary development triggered by the runaway growth of urban centers from the early nineteenth century through the first two decades of the twentieth. As new technologies and arrangements of public and private space changed the ways people experienced time and space, the urban panorama became less coherent-a metropolis defying traditional representation and definition, a vast jumble of shifting fragments and glimpses-and w...

One of Newsweek’s Best Books of the Year and winner of the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement.A cornerstone of the scriptural canon, the Book of Psalms has been a source of solace and joy for countless readers over millennia. This timeless poetry is beautifully wrought by a scholar whose translation of the Five Books of Moses was hailed as a “godsend” by Seamus Heaney and a “masterpiece” by Robert Fagles. Alter’s The Book of Psalms captu...