Richard Zimler Books In Order

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

A gripping literary mystery in the tradition of ‘The Name of the Rose’, set among secret Jews living in Lisbon in the sixteenth century. The year is 1506, and the streets of Lisbon are seething with fear and suspicion when Abraham Zarco is found dead, a naked girl at his side. Abraham was a renowned kabbalist, a practitioner of the arcane mysteries of the Jewish tradition at a time when the Jews of Portugal were forced to convert to Christianity. Berekiah, a talented young manuscript illuminator, investigated his uncle’s murder, and discovers in th kabbalah clues that lead him into the labyrinth of secrets in which Jews sought to hide from their persecutors.

Hunting Midnight

From the internationally bestselling author of The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon comes a novel of incomparable scope and beauty that takes the reader on an epic journey from war ravaged nineteenth century Europe to antebellum America. A bereft child, a freed African slave, and the rich history of Portugal’s secret Jews collide memorably in Richard Zimler s mesmerizing novel a dazzling work of historical fiction played out against a backdrop of war and chaos that unforgettably mines the mysteries of devotion, betrayal, guilt, and forgiveness.

Hunting Midnight

At the dawn of the nineteenth century in Portugal, John Zarco Stewart is an impish child of hotheaded emotions and playful inquisitiveness, the unwitting inheritor of a faith shrouded in three hundred years of secrecy for the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula have been in hiding since the Inquisition. But a season of loss and bitter discovery brings his innocence to an abrupt end. It is only the ministrations of a magical stranger, brought to Porto by his seafaring father, that restore his safety: Midnight, an African healer and freed slave, the man who will become John s greatest friend and determine the course of his destiny.

When Napoleon s armies invade Portugal, violence again intrudes on John s fragile peace, and seals his passage into adulthood with another devastating loss. But from the wreckage comes revelation as he uncovers truths and lies hidden by the people he loved and trusted most, and discovers the act of unspeakable betrayal that destroyed his family and his faith. And so his shattering quest begins as he travels to America, to hunt for hope in a land shackled by unforgivable sin.

With stunning insight and an eye for rich historical detail from the colorful marketplaces of Porto to the drowsy plantations of the American South, from the Judaism John discovers as a young man to the mystical Africa that Midnight conjures from his memories in Hunting Midnight Richard Zimler has crafted a masterpiece.

From the Hardcover edition.

Guardian of the Dawn

In an age of faith and fire
In a land of many gods
A journey of survival is about to begin.

In his acclaimed novels Hunting Midnight and The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, Richard Zimler has spun luminous historical fiction from the experience of the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula. Spanning decades and continents, his new novel is set in the lush world of colonial India during the age of the Inquisition. Here is the astonishing story of Tiago Zarco, a young man whose family fled forced conversions in Portugal and now lives in a twilight between local Hindus and the ruling Portuguese Catholics. As Tiago comes of age in Goa, the capital of the spice trade, he struggles to keep the far reaching powers of the Inquisition from destroying his family and pulling him apart from the Hindu girl he loves. When an act of betrayal puts his beloved father in prison, Tiago is forced to hunt down the traitor and make an unimaginable choice and for him, a harrowing journey begins one that will show him the depths of human depravity, and the dark, poisonous salvation of revenge .

At once a grand historical adventure and a riveting tale of love and mystery, Guardian of the Dawn brilliantly illuminates a world that has rarely been described in a novel that blazes with passion, fury, and hope.

The Seventh Gate

This is a novel of Berlin, prophesy, and unfinished portraits. In the Author’s Note to his internationally bestselling novel, ‘The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon’, Richard Zimler described how he discovered a long lost 16th century manuscript in an Istanbul cellar written by a Portuguese kabbalist named Berekiah Zarco. More than 400 years later, Isaac Zarco becomes convinced by the pact between Hitler and Stalin and other ‘signs’ that an apocalyptic prophesy made by his ancestor is about to come terribly true. Is he mad to believe that by decoding these ancient kabbalistic texts he might be the one to save the world? Set in 1930s Berlin, during the Na*zis’ rise to power, ‘The Seventh Gate‘ brings together Sophie Riedesel, an intelligent, artistic, and sexually adventurous fourteen yearold with Isaac Zarco and his friends, most of whom are Jews, ex circus performers and underground activists. When a series of forced sterilizations, brutal murders and ‘disappearings’ to concentration camps decimates the group, Sophie must fight with all her ingenuity and guile to save all that she loves about Germany at any cost. In its beautifully shaped portraits and in its chilling but sensuous evocation of Berlin in the 1930s, ‘The Seventh Gate‘ is at one and the same time a love story and tragedy and a tale of ferocious heroism.

The Angelic Darkness

Bill Ticino’s fruitless and numbing marriage finally breaks up. Plagued by insomnia and spiritually lost, Bill finds a loger as the solution to his problems; a handsome, charismatic Portuguese man named Peter. Bill finds himself drawn into a world of kabbalistic storytelling, charms and ritual. Peter ignites Bill’s repressed obsessions by telling him emotionally charged tales of hidden meaning. One night they venture into the Tenderloin district, a dead end world of prostitutes and transvestites. Bill begins to see that his new tenant has plans that will force him down a perilous sexual and spiritual path, with the power to both redeem and destroy.

The Search for Sana

A story of friendship, loyalty and dispossession In February 2000, Richard Zimler went to Australia for the Perth Writers’ Festival. While he was there, he met a talented dancer from a Brazilian mime and dance troupe. The tragic step she would take the next day would change his life forever, and launch him into an obsessive, three year investigation of her past. He discovers a childhood lived at a time of peaceful tolerance between neighbouring Arabs and Jews in the old districts of Haifa. As this tranquillity becomes fragile, and despite their ethnic and religious differences, two particular girls one Palestinian one Israeli forge a bond of sisterhood strong enough to last a lifetime. Zimler’s investigations lead him deeper and deeper into a web of illusions, cruelty and deceit and finally to September 11, 2001, when the tragedy he witnessed in Perth is set in the starkest of political contexts. Part memoir and part thriller, The Search for Sana blurs the conventional boundaries between fact and fiction as it takes an intimate look at a lifelong friendship, and the inception of an unthinkable crime.

The Children’s Hours

Publication of this book is timed to coincide with the implementation of recommendations of a groundbreaking United Nations study on Violence Against Children. To support Save the Children and raise awareness for its fight to end violence against children, bestselling authors from around the world have banded together to create a bold and moving anthology of stories about childhood. Participants include such acclaimed and award-winning authors as Ali Smith ‘The Accidental’, David Almond ‘Skellig’, Melvin Burgess ‘Junk’, Meg Rosoff ‘How I Live Now’ and Richard Zimler ‘The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon’. In ‘The Children’s Hours‘, these and fifteen other renowned authors explore and celebrate childhood; their tales touching on abuse and rejection, loneliness and love, the joys of friendship and discovery, and the first confused inklings of adolescent love. A major launch is planned for London in order to bring attention to this timely initiative. All writers’ royalties will be donated to Save the Children for its work to end violence against young people.