Woman Who Wrote the Bible

Moacyr Scliar (19372011) was the author of numerous works of fiction, including Max and the Cats (the inspiration behind Yann Martel’s Life of Pi) and The Centaur in the Garden, named one of the 100 Greatest Works of Modern Jewish Literature by the National Yiddish Book Center. His Collected Stories (UNM Press) was awarded the National Jewish Book Award.Internationally renowned scholar, essayist, linguist, translator, editor, and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture at Amherst College. He serves as the series editor for the University of New Mexico Press’s acclaimed Jewish Latin America Series.

“Moacyr Scliar’s novel The Woman Who Wrote the Bible, in a rollicking English translation by Heath Wing, is hilarious, irreverent, and thought-provoking. The author’s use of language, by turns modern and archaic, ribald and refined, sets this biting satire of the rigors and absurdities of the patriarchal order apart. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it.” - Jessica Powell, translator of Reinbou: A Novel by Pedro Cabiya “The Woman Who Wrote the Bible is a rowdy and sensual novel by Moacyr Scliar, one of the most important Latin American Jewish writers and a prize-winning Brazilian novelist. Heath Wing’s translation from the Portuguese well replicates the fast-paced and sexy narrative.” - Stephen A. Sadow, editor of I Am of the Tribe of Judah: Poems from Jewish Latin America “Thrilling. . . . The mere possibility that a woman is behind key portions of the Torah, in the hands of such a superb storyteller, is an exquisite invitation to rethink the book many people have rigid, fixed ideas about.” - Ilan Stavans, from the Introduction