"Beautiful…one of the best short novels he has written."— "Can rank with the best of Mann's writing."— "Magnificent…one of the greatest bits of writing which one of the world's greatest writers has ever given us."— "Brilliant…one of those splendid novelettes which in this reviewer's opinion represent the very essence of Mr. Mann's literary art."— "Thomas Mann wrote this engaging novella in a few weeks in 1943. (The new translation by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann, which is brisk and direct, is a welcome replacement of the fussier and less accurate English version done by Helen Lowe-Porter for the original publication.)…What is especially noteworthy about among Mann's fictions is its playfulness." —Robert Alter, Thus Thomas Mann introduces Moses in , 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: Mann's tale of the ethical founding and molding of a people sharply rebukes the Nazis for their intended destruction of the moral code set down in the Ten Commandments. But does his famous irony and authorial license mock or enhance the Biblical account of the shaping of the Jewish people? You know the Bible story. Now read Mann's version—it will grip you anew. Newly translated from the German by Marion Faber and Stephen Lehmann. "To present the foundation of law for half the world is no simple task. is a historical title following Moses as he is tasked by God to present the ten commandments, providing a human and much different insight on the role of Moses as the Prophet of God. Expertly translated, is a solid addition to any literary fiction collection."— (1875–1955) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. His many works include , , and . and co-authored a biography of the pianist Rudolf Serkin and have together translated Nietzsche's is the Charles Barnwell Straut Class of 1923 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University.