The Cross and the Pear Tree: A Sephardic Journey - Softcover

Perera, Victor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006542395 ISBN 13: 9780006542391

Publisher: Flamingo, 1997

Synopsis

Tracing the dramatic lives, through 500 years, of the old and distinguished family from which he is descended, Victor Perera recreates the history not only of his own people, but of an entire culture. The story begins in 15th-century Spain, where the Inquisition offered Sephardic Jews a choice of conversion, exile or death. It shows a flourishing tradition interrupted by cruel events; a story of persecution, escape and renewal, stretching across Europe to the Holy Land and Central America. The lives shown are emblematic of the Sephardic diaspora: Ana Pereira, a teenage girl who under torture incriminated 15 of her close relations; the fabulously wealthy merchant Abraham Pereira; the beautiful Maria Nunes, abducted to Shakespeare's England, where she rejected the marriage proposals of a duke; Emile and Isaac Pereire, who founded the French railway system. Finally, it is Victor Perera's search for the grandfather he never knew and his quest to uncover his own identity and liberate himself from a generations-old family curse, which come to dominate the book.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

By the author of 'Rites'

Tracing the dramatic lives, through five hundred years, of the old and distinguished family from which he is descended, Victor Perera brilliantly recreates the history not only of his own people, but of an entire culture.

The tale begins in fifteenth-century Spain, where the Inquisition offered Sephardic Jews a choice of conversion, exile or death. It is a story of a rich tradition interrupted by massively cruel events; of persecution, escape and renewal, carrying us across Europe to the Holy Land and Central America. The lives we enter are both fascinating in themselves and emblematic of the Sephardic diaspora: Ana Pereira, a teenage girl who under torture incriminated fifteen of her close relatives; the fabulously wealthy merchant and author Abraham Israel Perera; the beautiful Maria Nunes, abducted to Shakespeare’s England, where she rejected the marriage proposals of a duke; and the brothers Emile and Isaac Pereire, founders of the French railway system.

Finally, 'The Cross and the Pear Tree' is Victor Perera’s search for the grandfather he never knew, and his quest to uncover his own identity and to liberate himself from a generations-old family curse. His book richly brings to life a little-known culture in all its richness, profundity and colour.

About this edition

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0006542395
• ISBN 13: 9780006542391
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296