The Tribe Reviews
How can such a grown-up novel be so readable and seductive? The Tribe is several kinds of admirable book.’
Adam Mars-Jones
‘This a marvellous book. What a story! It feels so effervescent despite the tragic end of some of its characters. I knew the story of the Jews of Salonica, but Arditti gives it flesh and blood and life. The Tribe entranced me.’
Linda Grant
‘A tremendous, ambitious novel, richly peopled and adroitly covering a great sweep of 20th century history. An enthralling epic.’
William Boyd
‘A story of war, exile, emigration, secrets and marriage (happy and bad) unfolds. Michael Arditti is brilliant on the dynamic and traps of family life. The conversations, often fractious and occasionally affectionate, will be instantly recognisable to anyone with siblings. A fat, epic family saga that amply rewards the investment it will take to read it.’
Antonia Senior, The Times
‘The three-generational family saga is a well-known genre, as is the Holocaust novel; here, Michael Arditti combines the two, and the effect is to produce a masterpiece of storytelling, and a novel of immense compassion… This wonderful book contains transcendent truths.’ Alexander Lucie-Smith, Church Times
‘The Tribe succeeds, and indeed triumphs, because its people feel real… No major character is a cipher, placed merely to convey an idea or detail – although it is a book full of ideas, and most marvellously rich in detail.’
David Bennun, Jewish Chronicle
‘Michael Arditti’s impressive and immersive family saga begins in Salonica (now Thessaloniki) in 1911 and follows the fortunes of the wealthy, powerful Carrache family, who are part of the Sephardic Jewish community… Arditti proves himself to be a brilliant and sure-footed storyteller. He is able to establish place, character, politics and conflict in a few short pages.
Alice Jolly, The Spectator
‘I would also wholeheartedly recommend Michael Arditti’s The Tribe, the enthralling tale of a Sephardic dynasty in Salonica.’
Martin Chilton, The Independent
‘An expansive narrative full of incident and insight that dances between the contrasting viewpoints of a grand European Jewish dynasty over a period of 50 years.
Hephzibah Anderson, Jewish Renaissance