Price £8.99
Format Paperback
Published November 2005
Length 360 pages
ISBN 9781870015950
ISBN 9781905559459 (ebook)
Click to order
A Late Divorce
A.B. Yehoshua
Yehuda Kaminka, a retired teacher, returns to Israel from the U.S. to divorce his estranged wife who is in a mental asylum, having tried to kill him a few years earlier. The impending divorce of their parents throws into turmoil the lives of the couple’s three children and grandson, revealing the complexity of their relationships.
Yehuda’s nine days, leading up to Passover, are remembered by different members of the family: A.B. Yehoshua’s brilliance reveals itself in these different voices, each a minor masterpiece.
A picture slowly emerges of what happened as memories are revived, hopes expressed and dreams articulated. The narrative gathers pace as Yehuda’s visit draws to an end and he changes his mind about the divorce agreement.
Long out of print, A Late Divorce was A. B. Yehoshua’s second novel which fulfilled all the promise of The Lover, his first. A.B. Yehoshua has been shortlisted for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005 in recognition of his lifetime’s achievement.
A.B. Yehoshua
Born in Jerusalem in 1936, A.B. Yehoshua was the author of twelve novels, a collection of short stories, and several plays and volumes of essays. He has won prizes worldwide and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages and adapted for film and opera. An outspoken critic of both Israeli and Palestinian policies, he continued to speak about and search for solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Yehoshua died in June 2022, aged 85.
Visit our Remembering A.B. Yehoshua page to read some of the countless tributes and obituaries that have been written to celebrate Yehoshua’s incredible life and career.
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'In his fiction, Mr Yehoshua is subtle, indirect and sometimes visionary, even phantasmagoric'.
Harold Bloom, The New York Times
'… thank goodness for a novel that is ambitious and humane and that is about things that really matter'
New Statesman
'Anyone who has had experience of the sad and subtle ways in which human beings torment one another under licence of family ties will appreciate the merits of A. B. Yehoshua’s A Late Divorce'.
London Review of Books
'…there is something Chekhovian about Yehoshua’s affectionate impartiality toward his characters, who like Chekhov’s, combine hopeless, maddening egotism with noble impulses and redeeming outbursts of affection'.
Gabriele Annan, The New York Review of Books
'He is a master storyteller whose tales reveal the inner life of a vital, conflicted nation'.
Wall Street Journal