Exodus

Exodus by American novelist Leon Uris is about the founding of the State of Israel. Published in 1958, it is based on the name of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus. In 1956, Uris covered the Arab-Israeli fighting as a war correspondent. Two years later, Exodus was published by Doubleday. Exodus became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since ‘Gone with the Wind’. Exodus is the towering novel of the twentieth century’s most dramatic geopolitical event.

In his note of thanks, Leon Uris mentions about the two years he spent on collecting material, the nearly fifty thousand miles he travelled, the tons of research books and the number of interviews he conducted, all leading to the book Exodus. Which is why, the book comes across as solid reading material - The intriguing and inspiring story behind the birth of a nation.

The sheer grit and determination of the Jews to re-build their lost country, their stuggle to flock to the fledgling country which was in wilderness and then toiling day and night to make it their home, the tales of resistance they showed to the pressure and the random attacks by their enemies increases your sense of wonderment at what drove these people to surmount all the odds and build the new nation of Israel.

The story unfolds with the protagonist, Ari Ben Canaan, hatching a plot to transport Jewish refugees from a British detention camp in Cyprus to Palestine. The operation is carried out under the auspices of the Mossad Le’aliyah Bet. The book then goes on to trace the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.

The book is an earnest exposition of the birth of a new nation underlining metculously their struggle and emergence in a new form. The main strength of the book is its vivid description of different characters and the conflicts in their lives. As in several of Uris’s novels, some of the fictional characters are partially based upon one or more historical personages, or act as metaphors for the various people who helped to build modern Israel