Who Knew Not Joseph
“The history of the Hebrew nation from its peak of contentment to its descent into slavery. Through Yoram’s eyes and tribulations, Who Knew Not Joseph presents a real picture of the human side of that first holocaust. It tells how there indeed came a pharaoh who knew not Joseph.”
Menachem Mannie Magid’s sprawling debut novel uses a makeshift fictional character, a physically crippled young man from the Land of Goshen named Yoram, as the readers’ point-of-view entry into the world of the 18th dynasty of the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.
Once Magid’s narrative reaches the heart of that world of famous pharaohs like Amenhotep, Tutankhaton, Akhenaten, and their majordomo (and eventual pharaoh himself) Horemheb, young Yoram’s story very much shares equal billing in a narrative about power and intrigue.
Yoram’s fellow children of Israel fall prey to the dominion of the pharaohs, gradually becoming slaves in Egypt, a situation that will be familiar to Magid’s readers, but that here is given a great deal of added breadth and texture.
Magid takes the outline of the story of the Israelites’ subjugation and fleshes it out into an absorbing tale.
