Job

Joseph Roth · 1894–1939 · Austria (Galicia)

Originally Hiob (German)

Why it matters

A pious Jew from a Russian shtetl loses nearly everything he loves and rebuilds a life, faith in ruins, on the far side of the Atlantic. Roth retells the Book of Job as a tender, unsentimental fable of catastrophe and exile.

At a glance

A parable-like fable structure told in clean, folkloric prose.