Joseph and His Brothers: Translated and Introduced by John E. Woods

A major literary event: a definitive new translation of the Nobel Prize--winner's great masterpiece--the entire tetralogy in one volume. Thomas Mann regarded his monumental retelling of the biblical story of Joseph as his magnum opus. He conceived of the four parts--The Stories of Jacob, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt, and Joseph the Provider--as a unified narrative, a "mythological novel" of Joseph's fall into slavery and his rise to be lord over Egypt. Now the award-winning translator John E. Woods gives us an English version worthy of Mann's achievement. Woods strips away the heavy, awkward, "biblical" diction of the original English translation to reveal the novel's exuberant polyphony of ancient and modern voices, a rich music that is by turns elegant, coarse, and sublime. A brilliant amalgam of humor, emotion, psychological insight, and mythic sweep, Joseph and His Brothers is an epic comedy of extraordinary grandeur.