The writer AB Yehoshua, who has died aged 85 of cancer, helped project modern Hebrew literature on to the international scene. He came to notice in the 1960s with three volumes of short stories and his books included The Lover (1977), A Late Divorce (1982) and A Journey to the End of the Millennium (1997).
Of his many novels, Mr Mani (1989) was the most highly regarded. Rooted in a long psychoanalytical exploration of fathers and sons, this multigenerational novel explored the destiny of the fictional Mani family and was inspired by Yehoshua’s own lineage. Starting in 1982 in Jerusalem, the book flashes back to Crete in 1944, Palestinian Jerusalem in 1918, Kraków in 1899 and the Athens of 1848. Mainly written in monologues, it often touches on major turning points in Jewish history.
