Books » The Fig Tree
The Fig Tree
The Fig Tree is a tender book of true stories about family, about journeys, about home. Arnold Zable, bestselling author of Cafe Scheherazade, describes remarkable people struggling through tragic times and rejoicing in the unexpectedness of life itself.
Zable writes with wonderful feeling about the Greek villagers who made the long journey to and from Australia, about those lost in the Holocaust and postwar diaspora, about Jewish actors and writers who found new audiences in their adoptive country.
At the heart of this book is Zable's understanding of our obligations to the wanderers among us, to the dispossessed and the stateless. He makes a gift of their stories in The Fig Tree, celebrating the common threads of humanity that bind us all.
Critical Acclaim & Reviews
"...tonal word-portraits distinguished by the devices of traditional Yiddish storytelling. He employs subtle repetitions of formulas and paralleling of tales and of incidents to create a reverential mood underpinned by antiphonal echoes of observations on life by loved ancestors, poets and writers."
Michael Sharkey, Australian
"Like a skilled tightrope walker, [Zable] teeters over the abyss and walks into literature. The prose has a lush simplicity that can attain a kind of grandeur."
Susan Varga, Australian Book Review
"Brilliant."
Herald Sun