To Jerusalem and Back - by Saul Bellow (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A 50th-anniversary edition of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow's only full-length work of non-fiction: a profound meditation on the unique spirit and challenges of Israel and a powerful reckoning with his own Jewishness--featuring a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens

A Penguin Classic

A powerful, stimulating testament, To Jerusalem and Back is a rigorous attempt to come to grips with Israel's history and future. Immersing himself in the landscape and culture of this "small state in perpetual crisis," Bellow records the opinions, passions, and dreams of Israelis of varying viewpoints--Yitzhak Rabin, Amos Oz, the editor of the largest Arab-language newspaper in Israel, a kibbutznik escaped from the Warsaw ghetto--and adds his own reflections on being Jewish in the twentieth century. Saul Bellow's journey is not merely an exploration of a very beautiful and very troubled city; it is a major literary work, and an urgently important one.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Review Quotes

"Impassioned and thoughtful . . . Bellow evokes places, ideas, people . . . on the edge of history, an inch from disaster, yet brimming with argument and words." --The New York Times Book Review

"Essentially a plea for a greater understanding of the state of Israel by one of its most articulate admirers." --The Times (London)

"If someone read aloud to you from To Jerusalem and Back without saying what it was, you could end up supposing that whole segments of the book . . . were a report on today's news. . . . Certain passages . . . are imprinted on my brain, such that, whenever I have found myself in Jerusalem, the vistas before my eyes turn out to be Bellow's." --Paul Berman, Tablet

"An uncannily accurate take on Israel, the United States, and the enemies of the West . . . Almost half a century on, Bellow still reads like a man with his finger on the pulse of the UN, the International Criminal Court, France, and the United States. . . . His thoughts on the Middle East situation are as searching, as powerful, as fluent, and as worthwhile as ever. They are the brilliant ruminations of his antihero Herzog, stripped of the neurosis. Bellow climbs into the abyss of the Arab-Israeli conflict, sits with its quandaries, and, impressively, emerges with his cognitive bearing, moral compass, and grace intact." --City Journal

"To read Saul Bellow's To Jerusalem and Back a half century after its publication feels remarkably, almost disconcertingly, current. . . . It's a reminder that while much has happened in the intervening fifty years, little has changed. . . . What gives the book its enduring claim to our attention is its examination of the nature of Jewishness--its soul, purpose, and destiny. . . . Bellow is repeatedly reminded of how Israel is pressed down on every side . . . and all too aware of human nature at its worst. Yet it's also a country that seems to have a point of contact with the divine, a vista on the transcendent. . . . It's impossible to understand Israel without making allowances for the holy, good, and true and the enduring Jewish quest for each." --Bret Stephens, from the Foreword

About the Author

Saul Bellow (1915-2005) won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Humboldt's Gift, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, he was presented the National Book Award Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Bret Stephens (foreword) won the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for his foreign affairs coverage with the Wall Street Journal in 2013. He is currently a New York Times opinion columnist and inaugural editor-in-chief of SAPIR: Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future.