Noah Gordon
Encyclopedia
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
ist. He was born in Worcester
Worcester, Massachusetts
Worcester is a city and the county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, as of the 2010 Census the city's population is 181,045, making it the second largest city in New England after Boston....
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
.
Some of the topics covered within his novels include medical history
History of medicine
All human societies have medical beliefs that provide explanations for birth, death, and disease. Throughout history, illness has been attributed to witchcraft, demons, astral influence, or the will of the gods...
and medical ethics
Medical ethics
Medical ethics is a system of moral principles that apply values and judgments to the practice of medicine. As a scholarly discipline, medical ethics encompasses its practical application in clinical settings as well as work on its history, philosophy, theology, and sociology.-History:Historically,...
. More recently he has begun to focus more on themes relating to the Inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
, and Jewish cultural history.
His novel Shaman won the first James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction
The James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction is a biannual award given by The Society of American Historians. The prize is given "to honor works of literary fiction that significantly advance the historical imagination" . The prize is named for nineteenth century American...
in 1993.
Novels
- The Rabbi (1965)
- The Death Committee (1969)
- The Jerusalem Diamond (1979)
- The PhysicianThe PhysicianThe Physician is a novel by Noah Gordon. It is about the life of a Christian English boy in the 11th century who journeys across Europe in order to study medicine from the Muslims....
(1988) (Cole family trilogy) - Shaman (1992) (Cole family trilogy)
- Matters of Choice (1996) (Cole family trilogy)
- The Last JewThe Last JewThe Last Jew is a novel by Noah Gordon, 2000. It is about the Jews in the 15th century Spain, in the time of Inquisition, when the Jews are expelled from Spain. It tell the story of the life of a Jewish boy named Yonah Toledano.-Plot summary:...
(2000) - Sam and Other Animal Stories (2002) (children's stories)
- The Bodega (2007)