Recently, novelist John Irving announced that he will soon publish his sixteenth book, called Queen Esther. The launch is scheduled for November.
The book follows the life of Esther Nacht, a Jewish orphan born in Vienna who, after being abandoned at an early age, finds a home in Maine before heading to Israel, and in that account, Irving delves into deep themes related to Jewish identity and anti-Semitism.
The description published by the publisher is as follows: “Larch is younger than you remember, and the unadopted orphans of St. Cloud's are a different group of characters: among them, Esther Nacht, a Jewish woman born in Vienna. The story begins when Esther, not yet four years old, is abandoned one winter night. At age 14, she is taken in by a philanthropic family in New England, and becomes both a mystery and a guardian angel to them.”
The story begins at St. Cloud's orphanage in New England and ends in Jerusalem in 1981, the year Irving first traveled to Israel. About that ending, the author of The world according to Garp, The New Hampshire Hotel y Prayer for Owen He explained that “the novel always ended in Jerusalem in 1981. You cannot revise or rewrite history. The construction of this novel is much earlier than the events of October 7 and everything that has happened in Israel since those terrorist attacks and the hostage-taking.”
The author, who visited Israel again last year after decades, has expressed his long-standing affinity for the Jewish community and his support for Israel, but dismissed the novel as being about the current situation in the country.
The current situation in Israel and anti-Semitism could be described as a novel in itself, it has nothing to do with 1981 or anything before. Until a few years ago, no one would have imagined that in Israel the Labour Party was about to disappear, or that the far-right and Orthodox parties would have such a strong influence in governments. And in the rest of the world, since we are not talking about anti-Semitism, now the left or the communists are the ones who lead anti-Semitism, although they are not as violent or lack the psychopathy of the traditional fascist and neo-Nazi anti-Semites. Although the most incredible thing is that some of these fascist and neo-Nazi elements, transformed into far-right, have become staunch defenders of Israel… seeing is believing.