Job: The Story of a Simple Man

By ⋅ August 30, 2010 ⋅ Post a comment
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German translator Ross Benjamin won the 2010 Woolf prize for his version in English of the critical study Speak, Nabokov. His latest translation, Joseph Roth’s 1930 novel Job: The Story of a Simple Man, comes from Archipelago Books. One of the finest literary evocations of the world of Eastern European Jewry obliterated by World War II, Job was a bestseller in 1931 when it was first appeared in English. Still, the novel has not gotten the attention it deserves, even though Roth (1894-1939) is now recognized as one of the major German writers of the 20th century. Benjamin’s translation does this masterpiece, a modern retelling of the biblical story of Job, justice in English. World Books editor Bill Marx spoke to Benjamin about the challenges of translating Roth. Download MP3




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One comment for “Job: The Story of a Simple Man”

  • ernest Boyd

    I just listened to a report on a 12,000 year old pot luck from Galilee. I find it interesting for quite another reason. The dominant paradigm for how we became humans has emphasized “man the toolmaker”. I suggest that we became humans through food sharing. Fit folk gathered and hunted, but unlike most beasts, the food was brought back to a communal site for sharing. This allowed the elders and young ones who remained behind to develop story telling and language. Still to this day, everyone loves a pot luck.