Minotaur is a novel by Benjamin Tammuz first published in English translation in 1981. The translation was made by Kim Parfitt and Mildred Budny. The novel is a story of love and obsession with tragic consequences. Graham Greene declared that it was the "novel of the year" following its publication. [1] [2]
The novel was made into a film of the same name in 1997 by director Jonathan Tammuz, the son of Benjamin Tammuz.
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur, also known as Asterion, is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "part man and part bull". He dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, upon command of King Minos of Crete. According to tradition, every nine years the people of Athens were compelled by King Minos to choose fourteen young noble citizens to be offered as sacrificial victims to the Minotaur in retribution for the death of Minos's son Androgeos. The Minotaur was eventually slain by the Athenian hero Theseus, who managed to navigate the labyrinth with the help of a thread offered to him by the King's daughter, Ariadne.
In Greek mythology, Minos was a king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten by the Minotaur. After his death, King Minos became a judge of the dead in the underworld.
In Greek mythology, Pasiphaë was a queen of Crete, and was often referred to as goddess of witchcraft and sorcery. The daughter of Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, Pasiphaë is notable as the mother of the Minotaur. Her husband, Minos, failed to sacrifice the Cretan Bull to Poseidon as he had promised. Poseidon then cursed Pasiphaë to fall in love with the bull. Athenian inventor Daedalus built a hollow cow for her to hide in so she could mate with the bull, which resulted in her conceiving the Minotaur.
Theseus was a divine hero in Greek mythology who is famous for slaying the Minotaur. The myths surrounding Theseus, his journeys, exploits, and friends, have provided material for storytelling throughout the ages.
In Greek mythology, Ariadne was a Cretan princess, the daughter of King Minos of Crete. There are different variations of Ariadne's myth, but she is known for helping Theseus escape from the Minotaur and being abandoned by him on the island of Naxos. There, Dionysus saw Ariadne sleeping, fell in love with her, and later married her. Many versions of the myth recount Dionysus throwing Ariadne's jeweled crown into the sky to create a constellation, the Corona Borealis.
The Seventeenth of Tammuz ) is a Jewish fast day commemorating the breach of the walls of Jerusalem before the destruction of the Second Temple. It falls on the 17th day of the fourth Hebrew month of Tammuz and marks the beginning of The Three Weeks, a mourning period leading up to Tisha B'Av.
Tammuz, or Tamuz, is the tenth month of the civil year and the fourth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar, and the modern Assyrian calendar. It is a month of 29 days, which occurs on the Gregorian calendar around June–July.
"The House of Asterion" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in 1947 in the literary magazine Los Anales de Buenos Aires and republished in Borges's short story collection The Aleph in 1949. It is based on the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and is told from the perspective of Asterion, the Minotaur.
Joseph and His Brothers is a four-part novel by Thomas Mann, written over the course of 16 years. Mann retells the familiar stories of Genesis, from Jacob to Joseph, setting it in the historical context of the Amarna Period. Mann considered it his greatest work.
Benjamin Tammuz was an Israeli writer and artist who contributed to Israeli culture in many disciplines, as a novelist, journalist, critic, painter, and sculptor.
Jabra Ibrahim Jabra was an Iraqi-Palestinian author, artist and intellectual born in Adana in French-occupied Cilicia to a Syriac Orthodox Christian family. His family survived the Seyfo Genocide and fled to the British Mandate of Palestine in the early 1920s. Jabra was educated at government schools under the British-mandatory educational system in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, such as the Government Arab College, and won a scholarship from the British Council to study at the University of Cambridge. Following the events of 1948, Jabra fled Jerusalem and settled in Baghdad, where he found work teaching at the University of Baghdad. In 1952 he was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Humanities fellowship to study English literature at Harvard University. Over the course of his literary career, Jabra wrote novels, short stories, poetry, criticism, and a screenplay. He was a prolific translator of modern English and French literature into Arabic. Jabra was also an enthusiastic painter, and he pioneered the Hurufiyya movement, which sought to integrate traditional Islamic art within contemporary art through the decorative use of Arabic script.
The Minotaur is a mythological monster, half-man and half-bull.
"The Hand of Nergal" is one of the original short stories by American author Robert E. Howard starring the sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, an untitled fragment begun in the 1930s but not finished or published in Howard's lifetime. It was completed and titled by Lin Carter and in this form was published in the following collections:
Keigo Higashino is a Japanese author chiefly known for his mystery novels. He served as the 13th President of Mystery Writers of Japan from 2009 to 2013. Higashino has won major Japanese awards for his books, almost twenty of which have been turned into films and TV series.
Dumuzid or Dumuzi or Tammuz, known to the Sumerians as Dumuzid the Shepherd and to the Canaanites as Adon, is an ancient Mesopotamian and Levantine deity associated with agriculture and shepherds, who was also the first and primary consort of the goddess Inanna. In Sumerian mythology, Dumuzid's sister was Geshtinanna, the goddess of agriculture, fertility, and dream interpretation. In the Sumerian King List, Dumuzid is listed as an antediluvian king of the city of Bad-tibira and also an early king of the city of Uruk.
Charles James Box Jr. is an American author of more than thirty novels. Box is the author of the Joe Pickett series, as well as several stand-alone novels, and a collection of short stories. The novels have been translated into 27 languages. Over ten million copies of his novels have been sold in the U.S. alone. The first novel in his Joe Pickett series, Open Season, was included in The New York Times list of "Notable Books" of 2001. Open Season, Blue Heaven, Nowhere to Run, and The Highway have been optioned for film and television, the latter being adapted into the television drama series Big Sky, which debuted in November 2020. In March 2016, Off the Grid debuted at #1 on The New York Times Best Seller list. In 2021, Paramount Television Studios began production of a ten episode television adaptation of Box's Joe Pickett novels, featuring actor Michael Dorman as Joe Pickett, to air exclusively on the Spectrum cable television service in the U.S. The subsequent series was renewed for a second season in February 2022.
David Rosenfelt is an American author who has written thirty-three novels and three TV movies. The main character in most of his mystery books is Andy Carpenter, attorney and dog lover.
The Inspector Erlendur Series is a popular murder mystery series featuring Reykjavík detective Erlendur Sveinsson. Written by Icelandic author Arnaldur Indriðason, the series is published in the U.S. by Minotaur Press and consists of more than a dozen novels. Mýrin, the third book in the series, was the first to be translated into English. Mýrin was also adapted as a 2006 film entitled Jar City, starring Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson as Erlendur.
Jonathan Tammuz is a British-Canadian film director, best known for directing the short film The Childeater and the feature film Rupert's Land. The Childeater was a shortlisted Academy Award nominee for Best Live Action Short Film at the 62nd Academy Awards, and Rupert's Land was a Genie Award nominee for Best Picture at the 19th Genie Awards, with Tammuz also nominated for Best Director.
Ezekiel 8 is the eighth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. This book contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet/priest Ezekiel, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. In this chapter, Ezekiel condemns the idolatry which he sees in the Jerusalem Temple. His vision of the defiled temple continues as far as Ezekiel 11:25.