Title: The Red TentSeries: Fiction
Published by: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
ISBN13: 978-1250067999
Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, IndieBound
St. Martin ‘s Paperbacks978-1250067999
Overview
The Red Tent is the report of Dinah, a minor character in the koran of Genesis, chapter 34. The abbreviated episode in which she appears is normally referred to as the “ rape of Dinah, ” a crimson episiode that has posed difficulties for biblical scholars over the centuries. Dinah does not say a individual word in the biblical text ; what happens to her is recounted and characterized by her brothers. In The Red Tent, Dinah tells her own narrative, and that of the women around her.
Reading: The Red Tent – Anita Diamant
The Red Tent is historic fiction, but because it is based on a biblical report, many readers feel a special connection to its cast of characters, whose names echo through the ages right up to 21st century babies named Jacob, Rachel, Joseph and Dinah. Published in 1997, The Red Tent became a paperback best seller thanks to viva-voce corroborate. With no advertising budget and few reviews, the book found its audience through the loyalty of readers, the defend of independent bookstores, and aid from clergy who preached about The Red tent from the dais. The loss Tent – a perennial book group darling — has been published in 25 countries and in 2014 was adapted as a miniseries by Lifetime television receiver .
Praise
“ An acute, graphic novel … It is tempting to say that The Red Tent is what the Bible would be like if it had been written by women, but merely Diamant could have given it such sweep and grace. ”
—The Boston Globe
“ Diamant vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, farmers, midwives, slaves, and artisans. .. her Dinah is a compel narrator that has timeless resonance. ”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“ Cubits beyond most Woman-of-the-Bible saga in end run and vigor, this assumed escape based on the Genesis mention of Dinah, offspring of Jacob and Leah, disclaims her as a mere “ defiled ” victim and, further, celebrates the ancient continuity and integrity of women. … With stirring scenery and a narrative of force and color, a clear narrative marked by exhortative fulminations and bosomy lamentations. For a liberal bible audience with a possible spillover to the Bradley kinship. ”
—Kirkus Reviews
“ A minor character from the ledger of Genesis tells her life narrative in this intense evocation of the populace of Old Testament women. The merely surviving daughter of Jacob and Leah, Dinah occupies a far different universe from the flocks and commercial enterprise deals of her brothers. She learns from her Aunt Sarah the mysteries of obstetrics and from her early aunts the art of homemaking. Most significant, Dinah learns and preserves the stories and traditions of her family, which she shares with the proofreader in affectingly intimate detail. Familiar passages from the Bible come alive as Dinah fills in what the bible leaves out concerning Jacob ’ s courtship of Rachel and Leah, her own doomed sojourn in the city of Shechem and her stepbrother Joseph ’ s originate to fame and fortune in Egypt.
. .. . Diamant succeeds admirably in depicting the lives of women in the historic period that engendered our civilization and our most suffer values. ”
—Publishers Weekly
“ skillfully interweaving biblical tales with characters of her own invention, Diamant ’ s sweeping first novel re-creates the life of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her birth and happy childhood in Mesopotamia through her years in Canaan and death in Egypt. When Dinah reaches puberty and enters the Red Tent ( the topographic point women visit to give parturition or have their monthly periods ), her mother and Jacob ’ s three other wives initiate her into the religious and sexual practices of the tribe. Diamant sympathetically describes Dinah ’ second doomed relationship with Shalem, son of a ruler of Schechem, and his beastly death at the hands of her brothers. .. . Diamant has written a thoroughly enjoyable and clear portrayal of a intrigue charwoman and the life she might have lived. ”
—Library Journal starred revue
“ This earthy, passionate fib, told besides with big delicacy, is, quite simply a great learn. ”
—The Catholic Reporter
Reading Group Guide & FAQ
A READING GROUP GUIDE is published at the back of all paperback editions of The Red Tent .
Frequently Asked Questions
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How did you do your research?
My research focused on the casual biography of women in the ancient Near East. I consulted rabbinical sources very little and concentrated rather on the food, clothing, social administration, architecture, and music of the era –ca. 1500 BCE .
I was the recipient role of a library fellowship at Radcliffe College at the Schlesinger Library on the History of American Women, which permitted me access to the integral Harvard Library organization. As a visiting scholar of the Brandeis Hadassah Institute, I besides had access to the Brandeis library system .
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Q&A about The Red Tent
• The Red Tent takes place very much between the lines of the Bible. Could you describe the creative challenges of essentially inserting your own chapter into the Bible, and of giving flesh and voice to biblical characters? Did it intimidate you?
If you take the fourth dimension to focus on the words on the page of the Bible, you discover that the language is identical sparse. The information that contemporaneous readers expect of a story – or a myth – are missing : What is the weather like ? What time of day it ? What do the characters look like and what are their motives, what are they thinking ?
I wrote The Red Tent as a novel – not as an supernumerary chapter in the Bible. And writing fiction required me to come up with answers to questions like these. I wasn ’ t intimidated by the process because I did not think of my work as scholarly or theological. I probably would have been far more doubtful and worry had I tried to remain in a “ faithful ” dialogue with the words on the page and the fib as given and understood within my religious tradition. But from the get down, I intended to depart from the text to make the narrative my own .
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Excerpt
prologue
We have been lost to each early for thus long.
My mention means nothing to you. My memory is debris .
This is not your fault, or mine. The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the parole passed to the keeping of men, who had no direction of knowing. That is why I became a annotate, my narrative a brief detour between the well-known history of my father, Jacob, and the celebrated chronicle of Joseph, my brother. On those rare occasions when I was remembered, it was as a victim. Near the begin of your holy script, there is a passage that seems to say I was raped and continues with the bloody narrative of how my honor was avenged .
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