Description
A book-length interview with the Mother of God. No questions, just answers.
Mariamne is an old Jewish peasant woman from Galilee. She is visited by a young Greek man who came to see her to talk about her late son. Mariamne spins her story in the colourful and blunt language of a simple, old woman of natural intelligence and dry sense of humour.
In her eyes, Judas was the nicest friend of her son’s. She can’t forgive John the Baptist for stealing the object of young Hoshi’s love or, years later, finding it hard to conceal his jealousy of Yehoshua’s growing popularity.
According to her, Hoshi didn’t see himself as a god or a saviour of the entire humankind, or even a prophet or a religious reformer – he thought of himself first and foremost as a doctor and a little bit of a folk sage.
First published in Poland in 2004, According to Her creates a new, fresh retelling of the story which forms the basis of Judeo-Christian cultures. Written with wonderful language, strong feminist tones and a startling richness of detail about Jewish customs, this is, above all, a book of surprises.
Her character is drawn with such skill that, as the end comes, we suffer with her
Antonia Senior, The Times
