A Simple Carpenter

A carpenter is shipwrecked on a small Mediterranean island--he's completely lost his memory but has acquired the ability to speak, write and understand all languages. After his rescue, he spends time recuperating with a group of nuns who, observing him perform what appear to be small miracles, take him to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Later, in Beirut, he's hired as a translator for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, and is recruited as a messenger for Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group. Disillusioned by this experience, he treks on foot across the Galilean hills to the Sea of Galilee, encountering a series of strange communities evoking biblical times along the way. Part biblical fable, part magic realism, part thriller, Carpenter is set in the Middle Eastern "Holy Land" in the early '80s, against the backdrop of the civil war in neighboring Lebanon.