City of Pomegranates: A Novel of Jewish Spain (English Edition)

The setting is Spain; the time is a generation after the close of the first millennium, when many Muslim petty states are at war with one another, yet are also creating a renaissance of Arabic life and literature. Solomon Ibn Gabirol, a brilliant young Hebrew poet suffering from emotional illness and a disfiguring disease, becomes secretary to the greatest Hebrew poet of his generation, Samuel Ibn Naghrela, the urbane and powerful Vizier of Granada and commander of its armies. Together these very different men rescue Jewish culture from drowning unnoticed in a sea of Arabic letters. But their tense and complex friendship shatters when Solomon stumbles into the web of palace intrigue and his mistakes cause an unforgivable tragedy. In the end each man finds that he must sacrifice part of his soul to gain a measure of peace.