From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Isaac Bashevis Singer, comes a fictional exploration of primitive history. Singer's novel portrays an era of superstition and violence in a country emerging from the darkness of savagery. Set in Poland in the dark ages, it describes the brutality, prejudice and subjugation that occur when hunter-gatherers and farmers struggle for supremacy over the land. Part parable of modern civilization, part fascinating historical novel, this modern myth is a philosophical examination of man and his beliefs, and reaffirms the author's reputation as a master of narrative invention.

Singer is a master storyteller * Chicago Tribune Book World *
[A] curious excursion into prehistory * The New York Times *
Singer is a writer of far greater than ordinary power * The New York Times *

Born in 1902, Isaac Bashevis Singer grew up among fellow Jewish families in Poland. In response to the growing Nazi threat in neighbouring Germany, Singer emigrated to America. Settling in New York, he worked as a journalist for a Yiddish-language newspaper, The Forward. Singer was insistent that even after the Second World War, a wide audience remained for Yiddish texts, and each of his novels were originally written in his native language. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. Since Singer's death on July 24 1991 his name has been used in honour for a street in Surfside, Florida, and for the full academic scholarship for undergraduate studies at the University of Miami.