My Name is Asher Lev

Description

Chaim Potok's story of faith, freedom and art, new to Penguin Modern Classics Asher Lev is a gifted loner, the artist who painted the sensational Brooklyn Crucifixion. Into it he poured all the anguish and torment a Jew can feel when torn between the faith of his fathers and the calling of his art. Here Asher Lev plunges back into his childhood and recounts the story of love and conflict which dragged him to this crossroads.

Born in 1929, Chaim Potok grew up and was educated in New York. After being ordained as a rabbi, he took a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a chaplain with the US Forces in Korea from 1955-1957. He died in 2002. His novels The Chosen, The Promise, In the Beginning, The Book of Lights, My Name is Asher Lev, The Gift of Asher Lev and I am The Clay, have all been published by Penguin. He is also the author of Wanderings, a history of the Jews; of a children's book, The Tree of Here; and of three plays, Out of the Depths, Sins of the Father and The Play of Lights. Norman Lebrecht is widely regarded as one of the foremost cultural commentators of our time. Born in London, he is Assistant Editor of the Evening Standard and presenter of lebrecht.live on BBC Radio 3. His eleven books about music are translated into 15 languages, and in 2003 he won the Whitbread First Novel Award for The Song of Names.

"A novel of finely articulated tragic power. . . . Little short of a work of genius." "--The New York Times Book Review" "Memorable. . . . Profound in its vision of humanity, of religion, and of art.""--The Wall Street Journal" "Such a feeling of freshness, of something brand-new. . . . Attention-holding and ultimately moving." "--The New York Times" "Engrossing and illuminating." "--Miami Herald"