GRACIELA MOCHKOFSKY is the author of six books of nonfiction in
Spanish. She is a contributing writer for The New Yorker. Her work
has appeared in The California Sunday Magazine, The Paris Review,
the Jewish Forward, and numerous publications in Latin America and
Spain. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, a Cullman
fellow at the New York Public Library, and a Prins Foundation
fellow at the Center for Jewish History. She is the dean of CUNY's
Newmark J-School. She lives in New York City.
Translated by Lisa Dillman.
"Segundo Villanueva’s…desire to uncover the truth — a truth that he
believed had been obscured by centuries of misinterpretation and
guarded by worldly, corrupt men of the cloth — is…reminiscent of
the cultural conspiracies that roil our contemporary
politics....This story is sprawling, multigenerational, the stuff
of a Cecil B. DeMille epic."
—Kat Rosenfield, The New York Times
"Graciela Mochkofsky narrates the Peruvians’ improbable spiritual
and geographical journey with passion and aplomb.”
—Dominic Green, The Wall Street Journal
"Segundo Villanueva’s story is remarkable—a sort of inverse of
Christ’s narrative, from Catholic carpenter to founder of a Jewish
community—and Mochkofsky tells it meticulously and with
verve."
—Claire Messud, Harper's Magazine
“Mochkofsky absorbed Villanueva’s labyrinthine journey from the
Andes to the Holy Land, speaking with his family, friends, and
associates across multiple continents. She writes with an inviting
tone and easy rhythm that reflect Villanueva’s spirit of open
curiosity and clear thinking. Hers is a laudable work, and
Villanueva deserves a biography."
—Randy Rosenthal, The American Scholar
"With The Prophet of the Andes, Graciela Mochkofsky has pulled off
a remarkable narrative feat, spanning centuries of colonial,
religious and political history on several continents, without
losing sight of the human beings at the center of this surprising
drama. The epic and engrossing story of this improbable faith
community is unlike any spiritual journey you've read before."
—Daniel Alarcón, 2021 MacArthur fellow and author of At Night
We Walk in Circles
"This is an epic tale, and it is told accordingly. From the first
few pages, Graciela Mochkofsky immerses the reader in her
protagonist, Segundo Villanueva’s, search for the ultimate truth.
It is a journey full of awe, triumph, and all the other things that
accompany any search for the ultimate truth. Segundo’s search is
relentless, by turns inspiring and exasperating, and always
surprising: How can someone be this inventive, and this certain of
the possibility of finding the answer? Thousands of people become
engulfed in Segundo’s quest, which outlasts him. Mochkofsky never
breaks the spell, so it’s only after one finishes the book that one
might ask what just happened: Was one just compelled, as though
following the main character, to look for the ultimate truth - in a
book? Yes, and it was worth every minute and every page."
—Masha Gessen, National Book Award-winning author of The
Future is History
"If Gabriel García Márquez had written the Old Testament,
it might read like Graciela Mochkofsky's staggering true account of
a humble Peruvian carpenter's spiritual odyssey from a shack in the
Andes, via the Amazon, to the Promised Land of Israel with a
community of devoted followers. He and they, against all odds,
become Orthodox Jews, and the outliers of a mass conversion. Is
every Messiah a Quixote? Is every Quixote a messenger of the truth?
This is a unique story, thrillingly told."
—Judith Thurman, National Book Award-winning author of Isak
Dinesen: The Life of a Storyteller
“Graciela Mochkofsky’s literary gifts, as a stylist, a
story-teller, and as a thinker, are impressive, but she is also an
extraordinary reporter and investigator, courageous, relentless,
intuitive, penetrating, so quick and accurate in her reportorial
reflexes, a marvelous interviewer who despite the pressure of the
moment seems never to miss the opportunity to ask just the right
question, the one that springs the revelation we perhaps didn’t
know we were waiting for, or that unexpectedly joins the scattered
pieces of an elusive puzzle, or delivers a stirring insight into
personality. Her prose style is quick – in part because it reflects
her mind, which is even quicker—sinewy, precise, energetic, and her
narrative is controlled, concise, dramatic when it needs to be,
always utterly absorbing.”
—Francisco Goldman, author of Monkey Boy
“[An] immersive chronicle of an unusual search for religious
authenticity in 20th-century South America…Drawing on impressive
insider access, Mochkofsky documents the Peruvians’ beliefs and the
mixed reception they received in Israel with empathy and insight.
The result is an intimate chronicle of faith and politics.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Readers will be swept up in this story of one man’s unshakeable
quest for truth and the people who followed him through every
obstacle, from poverty to jungle predators to Israeli bureaucracy.
At times inspiring, at times heartbreaking, this account of a small
Jewish community is always engrossing.”
—Kirkus
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