"In the second half of the 18th century, the young Jew Jacob Frank reinvented himself time and again; he traveled through two empires, the Habsburg and the Ottoman; he professed three religions; he proclaimed himself the Messiah; he upset the authorities; he gathered disciples and created a sect that advocated breaking taboos and practiced, according to some rumors, orgiastic and bacchanalian rites; he sought spiritual transcendence in the midst of the Age of Enlightenment; he questioned the established order and was persecuted and accused of being a heretic... With this almost implausible real-life character-charismatic, mad, subversive, iconoclastic-the author constructs an epic, historical, satirical, and philosophical novel that spans Europe to its very limits, from peasant villages to sophisticated courts. With exquisite prose and a relentless pace, Tokarczuk captures the reader in her clutches and never lets go."--
