The Tables of the Law

Newly translated from the German by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann / Afterword by Michael Wood / 287-page paperback / 4.75" x 7.38" / ISBN 978-1-58988-057-3 / Publication Date: May 2010 "Beautiful…one of the best short novels he has written." —New York Times Book Review "Can rank with the best of Mann's writing" —Boston Globe * * * "His senses were hot, and so he yearned for spirituality, purity, and holiness—the invisible, which seemed to him spiritual, holy, and pure." Thus Thomas Mann introduces Moses in The Tables of the Law, the Nobel Prize winner's retelling of the prophet's life. Invited in 1943 to write this story as a defense of the Decalogue, Mann reveals how strange and forbidding Moses' task was. As "the Lawgiver"—endowed with the wrists and hands of a stonemason—engraves the tablets, so he hews the souls of his people: "Into the stone of the mountain I carved the ABC of human behavior,but it shall also be carved into your flesh and blood, Israel…" Mann's tale of the eth