A.B. Yehoshua Books in Order

Five conversations move backward through six generations of the Sephardi Mani family, from modern Israel to nineteenth-century Athens. With one speaker’s responses missing from each exchange, family history emerges through conflicting perspectives on identity, desire, and belonging.

An ambitious young doctor loses his internship and is sent to India with a hospital administrator and his wife to retrieve their sick daughter. The unexpected journey unsettles his professional plans and draws him into a searching examination of love.

Yehoshua examines the relationship between literature and morality through readings of nine works, from the story of Cain and Abel to modern fiction. His essays consider how characters’ capacity for moral change contributes to a work’s artistic achievement.

A migrant worker killed in a Jerusalem bombing lies unidentified for days before her body begins a journey home to Eastern Europe. The unlikely group accompanying her coffin must confront their responsibilities toward a woman whose humanity was overlooked.

During Hanukkah, Daniela travels to Africa to visit her widowed brother-in-law while her husband manages family and work in Israel. Their separate experiences expose the grief and unresolved violence beneath a busy family’s familiar routines.

An aging film director attends a retrospective in Spain with his longtime actress and muse. Revisiting their early work revives a bitter break with his screenwriter, turning a professional tribute into a difficult reckoning with memory and artistic responsibility.

After murdering a pawnbroker and her sister, an impoverished student in St Petersburg struggles with guilt while a perceptive detective begins to suspect him. This illustrated retelling introduces younger readers to the moral conflict at the center of Dostoyevsky’s novel.

A harpist returns from the Netherlands to Jerusalem while her widowed mother tries assisted living. Working as an extra in films and opera brings her into unfamiliar roles, prompting her to reconsider marriage, motherhood, family expectations, and her artistic independence.

A retired road engineer facing memory loss returns to work with encouragement from his wife. Planning a military road through the Negev brings him to a threatened family and a decision that entangles professional duty with compassion and identity.

Twelve-year-old Rachele learns that her father is seriously ill as preparations for her bat mitzvah collide with a role in her school’s Christmas play. Family, teachers, and competing religious traditions shape her attempt to understand illness and growing up.

In the year 999, a Jewish merchant travels from Tangier to Paris with his two wives and Arab business partner. A dispute over his marriage threatens their trading alliance, forcing him to defend his honor and way of life.

These stories explore isolation within families and communities, tracing lives shaped by frustrated responsibility and the longing for connection. A silenced poet, an isolated village, and a man caring for a former lover’s child reveal the dangers beneath ordinary obligations.

A Haifa professor investigates both the Algerian civil war and his son’s unexplained divorce. His determination to understand an Arab student’s world and penetrate his own family’s secrets pushes him across personal, professional, and political boundaries.