A translator of the Tao Te Ching and The Iliad but also the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell's gift is to breathe new life into the classics, and here he offers a riveting, novelistic version of the biblical tale in which Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, is sold into slavery and eventually becomes viceroy of Egypt. Stepping inside the minds of Joseph and the other characters, Mitchell's retelling interweaves the narrative with brief meditations that, with their Zen surprises, reveal the universality of this foundational story of betrayal and all-embracing forgiveness.

"Mitchell has fashioned a deceptively simple version of the story ... in luminous prose that the authors of the King James Version would applaud. A unique and special kind of masterpiece."—John Banville