To Jerusalem and Back A Personal Account (50th-Anniversary Edition)

A 50th-anniversary edition of Nobel laureate Saul Bellow’s only full-length work of non-fiction: a profound meditation on the unique spirit and challenges of Israel and a powerful reckoning with his own Jewishness—featuring a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens

A Penguin Classic

A powerful, stimulating testament, To Jerusalem and Back is a rigorous attempt to come to grips with Israel’s history and future. Immersing himself in the landscape and culture of this “small state in perpetual crisis,” Bellow records the opinions, passions, and dreams of Israelis of varying viewpoints—Yitzak Rabin, Amos Oz, the editor of the largest Arab-language newspaper in Israel, a kibbutznik escaped from the Warsaw ghetto—and adds his own reflections on being Jewish in the twentieth century. Saul Bellow’s journey is not merely an exploration of a very beautiful and very troubled city; it is a major literary work, and an urgently important one.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Humboldt’s Gift, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The only novelist to receive three National Book Awards, he was presented the National Book Award Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Bret Stephens (foreword) won the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary for his foreign affairs coverage with the Wall Street Journal in 2013. He is currently a New York Times opinion columnist and inaugural editor-in-chief of SAPIR: Ideas for a Thriving Jewish Future.