What do you think?
Rate this book
Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes
Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes follows the life-journey of a wandering narrator who encounters a series of displaced persons. With each encounter the narrator inevitably moves on, dreaming of home, unable to resist the lure of the world's labyrinth.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
156 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2008
1 person is currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Tamar Yellin
18 books7 followersTamar Yellin is an author and teacher who lives in Yorkshire. Her first novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher, won the 2007 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.
Tamar Yellin was raised in Leeds. Her father was a third-generation native of Jerusalem;[2] his father was Yitzhak Yaakov Yellin (1885–1964), one of the pioneers of the Hebrew language press in pre-state Israel. Her mother was the daughter of a Polish immigrant to England.
Yellin attended the Leeds Girls' High School. She studied biblical and modern Hebrew language and Arabic language at the University of Oxford
She spent 13 years writing her first novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher (2005) and took two years to find a publisher. This was followed by a collection of 13 short stories, Kafka in Brontëland (2006) and another novel, Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes (2008). She also writes fiction for magazines, including The London Magazine and the Jewish Quarterly, and has published stories in two anthologies, The Slow Mirror and Other Stories: New Fiction by Jewish Writers (1996) and Mordecai's First Brush with Love: New Stories by Jewish Women in Britain (2004).
Yellin is a teacher for the Interfaith Education Center, in which capacity she speaks to non-Jewish schoolchildren about Jewish religious practices.
Tamar Yellin was raised in Leeds. Her father was a third-generation native of Jerusalem;[2] his father was Yitzhak Yaakov Yellin (1885–1964), one of the pioneers of the Hebrew language press in pre-state Israel. Her mother was the daughter of a Polish immigrant to England.
Yellin attended the Leeds Girls' High School. She studied biblical and modern Hebrew language and Arabic language at the University of Oxford
She spent 13 years writing her first novel, The Genizah at the House of Shepher (2005) and took two years to find a publisher. This was followed by a collection of 13 short stories, Kafka in Brontëland (2006) and another novel, Tales of the Ten Lost Tribes (2008). She also writes fiction for magazines, including The London Magazine and the Jewish Quarterly, and has published stories in two anthologies, The Slow Mirror and Other Stories: New Fiction by Jewish Writers (1996) and Mordecai's First Brush with Love: New Stories by Jewish Women in Britain (2004).
Yellin is a teacher for the Interfaith Education Center, in which capacity she speaks to non-Jewish schoolchildren about Jewish religious practices.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 18, 2021
A consummate storyteller.
October 10, 2008
These melancholy stories, narrated by a wandering Jewish scholar who encounters a series of lost and lonely people, read like early 19th-century Eastern European stories, but the theme of displacement feels very contemporary. She captures the sense that once you leave home, you may never find anywhere -- even if you return to your lost place of origin -- that feels like home again.
December 13, 2013
This book was a gift. I scanned the obscure quotations between the chapters and thought I was in for a heavy read, so for a while I put off starting it. To be honest, I am not that concerned what happened to the ten lost tribes, although I remember from my childhood that my aunt claimed to be a British Israelite, and that seemed quite exotic. I never spoke to her about it then, and by the time I reached adulthood and might have had a conversation about it my mind had moved onto other things. Still, I like a good mystery, so here goes.
To my surprise, the book turned out to be a series of unconnected short stories. At least, I wasn't immediately aware of a connection, but as I worked through them I began to realise that perhaps each story was an allegory about each of the ten tribes in turn. I don't know enough about the tribes as to hazard a guess at the allegories, but I could see some familiar themes: displacement, lack of recognition, a sense of drifting, a feeling that something better is just around the corner, a desire to keep moving. Perhaps these themes are offered as a description of the 'Jewish problem', but I'm not sure they are peculiar to the Jews. These themes are common to many individuals from many communities.
When Israel was established as a political and geographical state, not all Jews were pleased with the concept. Some thought that Israel was a state to be achieved after death, and that, like Moses, they deserved God's punishment for being bone-headed, and would never achieve their Promised Land on earth. Those Jews who settled in Israel, and indeed, spilled over its borders, took on characteristics not traditionally associated with Jews, but many Jews chose not to 'return' and continued their wanderings. Perhaps these are the Jews who best represent the lost tribes, and who we meet in this book.
The writing is spare, dispassionate and anonymous. The locations are never identified. The characters are presented fully formed, but with no point of context. And the narrators, different (or perhaps not?) in each story, are never named, so it is difficult to be drawn into their particular plight. We can only look through a glass darkly. Compared with such a long history littered with examples of severe persecution the details of one's current life might indeed be unimportant. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I was intrigued. The snippets of stories held me, left me wanting more. I particularly liked the first story, in which a small girl sees the magic in her restless, irresponsible uncle, comparing him favourably with her staid and dependable father. She covets his collection of mysterious talismans, and has to look for the magic in her own life to effect a series of trades with him. The uncle treats her in all seriousness, weighing up her preposterous claims before agreeing to a swap.
But I didn't enjoy the other stories as much, and in the end I wasn't sure exactly what I had experienced. But perhaps I missed the point completely.
To my surprise, the book turned out to be a series of unconnected short stories. At least, I wasn't immediately aware of a connection, but as I worked through them I began to realise that perhaps each story was an allegory about each of the ten tribes in turn. I don't know enough about the tribes as to hazard a guess at the allegories, but I could see some familiar themes: displacement, lack of recognition, a sense of drifting, a feeling that something better is just around the corner, a desire to keep moving. Perhaps these themes are offered as a description of the 'Jewish problem', but I'm not sure they are peculiar to the Jews. These themes are common to many individuals from many communities.
When Israel was established as a political and geographical state, not all Jews were pleased with the concept. Some thought that Israel was a state to be achieved after death, and that, like Moses, they deserved God's punishment for being bone-headed, and would never achieve their Promised Land on earth. Those Jews who settled in Israel, and indeed, spilled over its borders, took on characteristics not traditionally associated with Jews, but many Jews chose not to 'return' and continued their wanderings. Perhaps these are the Jews who best represent the lost tribes, and who we meet in this book.
The writing is spare, dispassionate and anonymous. The locations are never identified. The characters are presented fully formed, but with no point of context. And the narrators, different (or perhaps not?) in each story, are never named, so it is difficult to be drawn into their particular plight. We can only look through a glass darkly. Compared with such a long history littered with examples of severe persecution the details of one's current life might indeed be unimportant. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I was intrigued. The snippets of stories held me, left me wanting more. I particularly liked the first story, in which a small girl sees the magic in her restless, irresponsible uncle, comparing him favourably with her staid and dependable father. She covets his collection of mysterious talismans, and has to look for the magic in her own life to effect a series of trades with him. The uncle treats her in all seriousness, weighing up her preposterous claims before agreeing to a swap.
But I didn't enjoy the other stories as much, and in the end I wasn't sure exactly what I had experienced. But perhaps I missed the point completely.
July 15, 2009
I found this to be a fascinating book, very original. It can get a bit musty, as it's stream-of-consciousness, and the narrator is definitely a bit of a stuffy academic. :P Throughout the course of the stories, you can tell that it's the same protagonist, though he has no name and has no gender (I'm assuming male)- the stories are all about wandering, being a foreigner, being lost, or being uncomfortable in your own skin. The supporting cast always receives names only because they are fleeting.
Each story is named after one of the ten lost tribes of Israel- Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim and Manasseh. Since I recently finished "The Red Tent," hee, I felt more comfy than usual with these sons of Jacob, though they weren't actually characters in the stories, but rather served as the idea behind wandering lost, which is really a narrative for the Diaspora Jewish experience. At least traditionally. :P
I'd highly reccomend this book to anyone looking for a taste of something new. And for you Jewish scholars out there- Tamar prefaces her stories with some quotes that you'll really love. :D
Each story is named after one of the ten lost tribes of Israel- Reuben, Simeon, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Ephraim and Manasseh. Since I recently finished "The Red Tent," hee, I felt more comfy than usual with these sons of Jacob, though they weren't actually characters in the stories, but rather served as the idea behind wandering lost, which is really a narrative for the Diaspora Jewish experience. At least traditionally. :P
I'd highly reccomend this book to anyone looking for a taste of something new. And for you Jewish scholars out there- Tamar prefaces her stories with some quotes that you'll really love. :D
October 7, 2008
Given stunning reviews, I expected to like this collection of stories much more than I did. Each story is preceded by the name of one of the ten lost tribes of Israel, and some brief quotes about the lost tribes. The stories themselves are cleverly linked to this conceit of the lost tribes in that each features an unnamed narrator, disconnected from others and homeless in the sense of being lost in the world. Ultimately the stories seemed to run together into a depressing river of lost opportunities, and none of the characters is sympathetic enough to really care about.
February 12, 2009
This is a very intriguing premise: the book is a series of linked stories and the language is lovely and evocative, but they don't always 'work' independently and as a set. I liked the way the last story tied in with the first, although thought it a little forced. The first story was the best, and this is what hooked me into committing to the book initially. I had high hopes and felt disappointed by the end, but I would definitely check for more fiction by this writer.
February 20, 2009
I found this book as an "Advance Reader's Copy/Uncorrected Proof" in a second-hand store and consider it quite a find. Amazing manipulation/camouflaging/metamorphoses of the linking narrator/persona as the eternal/universal border-crosser. Some elements of magical realism, but they don't hit you over the head. This line is not really a cliche: "You want to go home, she answered, but there is no such place."
March 31, 2009
Although I have yet to discover really WHAT this had to do with the ten lost tribes, I really enjoyed the book. It's a quick read. I loved the author's writing style. She really has a knack for crafting a wonderfully written sentence. Each chapter reads as a short story and I found them each engaging and interesting. I'd recommend it to almost everyone.
April 13, 2009
Very disappointing. I did not get the connection between the tribe named in each story and the theme or image of the story (maybe there wasn't one!) I was glad to finish it and be able to move on to something different.
July 24, 2011
Loved her first book. Still trying to understand this one. Short Stories but I'm sensing a pattern that I haven't captures yet.
May 21, 2016
Wonderful writing. Some stories work better than others, but all are good. At least a couple are stellar.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews