The Wisdom Books
Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary
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First time in paperback: “One of the most ambitious literary projects of this or any age.”—Adam Kirsch, New Republic
Here in Robert Alter's bold new translation are some of the most magnificent works in world literature. The astounding poetry in the Book of Job is restored to its powerful ancient meanings and rhythms. The creation account in its Voice from the Whirlwind is beautiful and incendiary. By contrast, a serene fatalism suffuses Ecclesiastes with a quiet beauty, and the pithy maxims of Proverbs impart a worldly wisdom that is satirically shrewd. Each of these books addresses the universal wisdom that the righteous thrive and the wicked suffer in a rational moral order; together they are essential to the ancient canon that is the Hebrew Bible.Robert Alter
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Robert Alter’s published work has earned him the PEN Center Literary Award for Translation and the Los Angeles Times’s Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a longtime professor of comparative literature at University of California, Berkeley, and lives near campus.
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