Howard Jacobson

'He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one'. Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer a

How is it possible to read Howard Jacobson and not lose oneself in admiration for the music of his language, the power of his characterisation and the penetration of his insight? ... The Finkler Question is further proof, if any was needed, of Jacobs on's mastery of humour' The Times Wonderful ... Jacobson is seriously on form' Evening Standard 'There are few writers who exhibit the same unawed respect for language or such a relentless commitment to re-examining even the most seemingly unobjectio nable of received wisdoms' Daily Telegraph 'Full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding. It is also beautifully written with that sophisticated and near invisible skill of the authentic writer' Observer.

A Booker-díjas regény három, Londonban élő barát története barátságról, szerelemről, hűségről és zsidó identitásról.

Jedenáctý román Howarda Jacobsona, který za něj roku 2010 obdržel Man Bookerovu cenu, těží – podobně jako mnohá jeho předchozí díla – z autorovy vlastní zkušenosti liberálního židovského intelektuála. Židovství je však nahlíženo zvenčí, očima jednoho z trojice protagonistů, milovníka italské opery a univerzálně použitelného dvojníka slavných osobností – čtyřicátníka Juliana Treslova. Julian ovšem žid není, pouze si jím přeje být. Možná proto, aby se více přiblížil svým úspěšným přátelům, někdejšímu učiteli a autorovi životopisů hollywoodských hvězd, českému emigrantovi Liboru Ševčíkovi, a bývalému spolužákovi Samuelu Finklerovi, který si po studiu v Oxfordu vybudoval kariéru na sérii popularizačních pseudofilozofických příruček. Julian se k židovským tradicím, hodnotám a identitě upíná také jako ke spásné kompenzaci svých milostných nezdarů. Jedna letní noc, kdy se právě on stane obětí antisemitského útoku, však způsobí v jeho životě zásadní zlom. Humoristický román ze současné Británie se dotýká ožehavé problematiky antisemitismu a antisionismu či záležitostí obecně lidských – přátelství, partnerství, kariéry, víry a konečně i života a smrti.

On what he calls 'the adventure of his life', Howard Jacobson travels around Australia, never entirely sure where he is heading next or whether he has the courage to tackle the wild life of the bush, the wild men of the outback, or the even wilder women of the seaboard cities. In pursuit of the best of Australian good times, he joins revelers at Uluru, argues with racists in the Kimberleys, parties with wine-growers in the Barossa and falls for ballet dancers in Perth. And even as vexed questions of national identity and Aboriginal land rights present themselves, his love for Australia and Australians never falters.

Novelist Guy Ableman is in thrall to his vivacious wife Vanessa, a strikingly beautiful red-head, contrary, highly strung and blazingly angry. The trouble is, he is no less in thrall to her alluring mother, Poppy. More like sisters than mother and daughter, they come as a pair, a blistering presence that destroys Guy's peace of mind, suggesting the wildest stories but making it impossible for him to concentrate long enough to write any of them. Not that anyone reads Guy, anyway. Not that anyone is reading anything. Reading, Guy fears, is finished. His publisher, fearing the same, has committed suicide. His agent, like all agents, is in hiding. Vanessa, in the meantime, is writing a novel of her own. Guy doesn't expect her to finish it, or even start it, but he dreads the consequences if she does. In flight from personal disappointment and universal despair, Guy wonders if it's time to take his love for Poppy to another level. Fiction might be dead, but desire isn't. And out of that desire he imagines squeezing one more great book. By turns angry, elegiac and rude, Zoo Time is a novel about love - love of women, love of literature, love of laughter. It shows our funniest writer at his brilliant best.

The brilliant new novel from the Booker prize-winning author. Two people fall in love, not yet knowing where they have come from or where they are going. They aren't sure if they have fallen in love of their own accord, or whether they've been pushed into each other's arms. But who would have pushed them, and why? Hanging over their lives is a momentous catastrophe - a past event shrouded in suspicion, denial and apology, now referred to as What Happened, If It Happened. Set in the future - a world where the past is a dangerous country, not to be talked about or visited - J is a love story of incomparable strangeness, both tender and terrifying. Short-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize Short-listed for the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize.