Only Yesterday [Paperback]

Even in translation, its unique style is irresistible. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Ancient religious longing, modern political aspirations and personal dreams of liberation all intersect [here]. . . . Unlike many of the pioneers who went to make a new life in the Land of Israel, Agnon tried to take everything with him, which is why his writing is so packed, so intensely allusive. This is one of the glories of Agnon's prose. . . . [He is haunted by a] mixture of pride and shame at being an intellectual in a society that worshiped farmers, a writer in a culture founded on a dream of physical labor. . . . Of course all these paradoxes help make Agnon the great modernist that he is. -- Jonathan Rosen, New York Times Book Review

[This is] Agnon's gigantic achievement. . . . In place of Joyce's Dublin and Doeblin's Berlin, Agnon gives us a tale of two cities, secular Jaffa, the commercial and literary centre of the Yishuv, and sacred Jerusalem, parched by dust, poverty and drought, home to every stripe of simple faith and angry fanaticism. . . -- Morris Dickstein, Times Literary Supplement

Agnon forged the language of modern Hebrew literature. . . . [His] novel has a folkloric quality analogous to the bold simplifications of Chagall, locating the archaic residue lurking just below the surface disenchantment of modernity. -- Publishers Weekly

Critics adore interpreting and decoding Agnon, whose literary and personal mythological universe has provided endless fodder for dissertations, books, and erudite essays. . . . Now, Princeton University Press has made Agnon's most celebrated work available for ordinary readers as well, with the first English translation of Agnon's sprawling, double-plotted, cryptically symbolic mega-novel. -- Susan Miron, The Philadelphia Inquirer

[A] scathing vision of God and man, Zionism and Jewish history, desire and guilt, language, and meaning . . . a novel that deserves comparison with Franz Kafka's The Trial . . . Its appearance in English now, delayed for half a century by the formidable difficulties of translating its Hebrew, makes available to American readers a work of powerful, and eccentric, originality. -- Robert Alter, Los Angeles Times Book Review

An immense ragbag of a book, full of insight and poetry, tending to surrealism, not to say mythology, mannered and even precious in style, discursive, and all told with a cleverness that opens up a number of possible meanings. . . . -- David Pryce-Jones, The Spectator

Never before available in English, a masterpiece of the picaresque by the Nobel laureate who is arguably the greatest novelist in modern Hebrew. Fifty-five years after this epic tale's initial publication, Harshav provides an eloquent translation, successfully capturing Agnon's carefully nuanced and bitter humor. . . . One of the finest novels of this century. -- Kirkus Reviews

This is one of the central works of modern Jewish culture. . . . [It] is fascinating and engrossing and Barbara Harshav has handled the imposing task of translation with aplomb, creating an unfussy, clean equivalent to Agnon's idiosyncratic Hebrew style. -- Alan Mintz, The Forward

A brilliant epic of a simple man's quest for the Promised Land . . . . This is a work so rich and allusive, so real and yet so strange, that despite its exalted place in the canon of one of the 20th century's major artists, it's not surprising that no one had undertaken until now the formidable challenge of translating it into English. . . . [In] a lively and accessible translation by Barbara Harshav. . . . [s]he uncannily captures the highly idiosyncratic voice and lilt, the full measure of provincialism and sophistication, of the master. . . . For this miracle of a translation, which brings Agnon's original Hebrew vividly to life, we can only be grateful. -- Tova Reich, Washington Post Bookworld

There are flashes of steely observation . . . as well as delight, sadness, disgust, hauteur, pity, cruelty and a whole range of other such opposing yet confluent emotions and states of being . . . plainly a labor of love. -- Dan Jacobson, The New York Review of Books

The novel is crammed with bewitching characters and amazing episodes. Even in translation, its unique style is irresistible. -- Gerald Kaufman, Sunday Telegraph

Only Yesterday was first published in 1945, but it is just as timely today. . . Barbara Hershey's translation-the first ever in English-is thoroughly smooth and enjoyable. She succeeds in preserving Agnon's unique style, Voltaire-like witticism, and literary beauty. -- Alexander Zvielli, The Jerusalem Post