The Procedure

Internationally renowned novelist Harry Mulisch's The Procedureis a haunting and fascinating novel about two men who try to create life but fail. In the late sixteenth century, Rabbi Jehudah Löw, in order to guarantee the safety of the Jews in Prague, creates a golem by following a procedure outlined in a third-century cabalist text. Four hundred years later, Victor Werker, a Dutch biologist mourning the loss of his stillborn daughter, causes an international uproar when he creates a complex organic clay crystal that can reproduce and has a metabolism. But his unsettling discovery takes its toll as his inner and outer demons pursue him around the world, from California to Venice, Cairo, and Jerusalem.

Harry Mulisch was born in Holland and is the author of the international bestseller The Discovery of Heaven and Last Call, as well as other novels, short stories, essays, poetry, plays, and philosophical works.