Book description
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 Nazis' 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.
