About the Author

Anita Diamant is the author of The Red Tent, a word-of-mouth bestseller and the Booksense Best Fiction selection. She is also the author of the novels Good Harbor, The Last Days of Dogtown and Day After Night, a collection of essays, Pitching My Tent, as well as several books about contemporary Jewish life, including The New Jewish Wedding and Choosing a Jewish Life: A Guidebook for People Converting to Judaism. Diamant grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and Denver, Colorado. She has a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's in English from the State University of New York at Binghamton. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband.

Reviews

"Diamant vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, shepherds, farmers, midwives, slaves, and artisans....Her Dinah is a compelling narrator that has timeless resonance." --Merle Rubin, The Christian Science Monitor "A full-bodied novel." --Susan Adler, Hadassah magazine

Skillfully interweaving biblical tales with events and characters of her own invention, Diamant's (Living a Jewish Life, HarperCollins, 1991) sweeping first novel re-creates the life of Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, from her birth and happy childhood in Mesopotamia through her years in Canaan and death in Egypt. When Dinah reaches puberty and enters the Red Tent (the place women visit to give birth or have their monthly periods), her mother and Jacob's three other wives initiate her into the religious and sexual practices of the tribe. Diamant sympathetically describes Dinah's doomed relationship with Shalem, son of a ruler of Shechem, and his brutal death at the hands of her brothers. Following the events in Canaan, a pregnant Dinah travels to Egypt, where she becomes a noted midwife. Diamant has written a thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating portrait of a fascinating woman and the life she might have lived. Recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/97.]‘Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle

"Diamant vividly conjures up the ancient world of caravans, shepherds, farmers, midwives, slaves, and artisans....Her Dinah is a compelling narrator that has timeless resonance." --Merle Rubin, The Christian Science Monitor "A full-bodied novel." --Susan Adler, Hadassah magazine