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THE BOOK OF WITNESSES by David Kossoff

THE BOOK OF WITNESSES

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Pub Date: May 1st, 1972
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

The ""witnesses"" of the title are several dozen fictional characters whose lives were at some point affected by the historical Jesus at different stages of his life: as infant, child, preacher and prophet, and, finally, as victim. The various accounts given by these characters in the first person describe their contact with Jesus and the impact upon their lives of so extraordinary a person. They -- the narrators as well as the accounts -- are, of course, wholly the product of Mr. Kossoff's imagination, though they fit snugly within the framework of the Gospels, and their style varies cleverly and convincingly according to the situation of the narrator. Altogether an original and beautifully executed exercise in imagination, this work achieved considerable success in England. Here, with Mr. Kossoff scheduled to do readings from it on radio and television this year, one may expect very much the same result.