Hanna Heath, an Australian rare book conservator, travels to Sarajevo in 1996 to restore the Sarajevo Haggadah, a fourteenth-century Hebrew manuscript. As she analyzes the physical components of the book—a fragment of an insect, a wine stain, and a white hair—the narrative shifts backward through time to reveal the artifact's origins. The story tracks the codex through Nazi-occupied Bosnia, fin-de-siècle Vienna, the Inquisition in Venice, and medieval Spain. Each chapter functions as a historical mystery, detailing how individual's lives intersected with the book’s survival during periods of religious persecution.
Readers of historical fiction and archival mysteries choose this book for its technical focus on manuscript preservation and its depiction of cross-cultural cooperation. It attracts those interested in the material history of Judaism and the specific ways objects outlive their creators. A reader gains an understanding of the chemical processes used in restoration and the historical tensions between religious communities in Europe. The text provides a concrete look at how physical evidence links modern science to centuries of migration and war.
- Published
- 2008
- Language
- EN
