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Jerusalem
  • Published: 3 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141040028
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $54.00

Jerusalem

Formats & editions
EBook
17 Aug 2009
Paperback
3 May 2010
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The new paperback from the author of Twelve Bar Blues, Whitbread Novel of the Year 2001

'He looks like a Brit, this guy. Full of good intentions and bad ideas.'

Straddling two continents and two centuries, Patrick Neate's Jerusalem is a sweeping and hilarious epic of English misadventures abroad and at home. It features a self-serving MP lost and alone in an African dictatorship; a young, ultra-hip entrepreneur looking for something (or someone) new to exploit and an English veteran of a colonial war trying to save England from itself. With a host of other brilliant and brilliantly drawn characters, this is the funniest and most moving story of Englishness as it never was, isn't now and, hopefully, will never be.
  • Published: 3 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9780141040028
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 416
  • RRP: $54.00
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About the authors

Yotam Ottolenghi

Yotam Ottolenghi is the restaurateur and chef-patron of the nine Ottolenghi delis, as well as the NOPI and ROVI restaurants. He is the author of eleven bestselling and multi-award-winning cookery books. His championing of vegetables, as well as ingredients once seen as 'exotic', has led to what some call 'The Ottolenghi effect'. This is shorthand for the creation of a meal which is full of colour, flavour, bounty and sunshine. Yotam lives in London with his family. www.ottolenghi.co.uk @Ottolenghi
portrait photo of Yotam Ottolenghi

Sami Tamimi

Sami Tamimi was born and raised in Jerusalem and was immersed in food from childhood. He started his career as commis-chef in a Jerusalem hotel and worked his way up to become head chef of Lilith, one of the top restaurants in Tel Aviv in the 1990s. Sami moved to London in 1997 and worked at Baker & Spice as head chef, where he set up a traiteur section with a rich Middle-Eastern and Mediterranean spread. In 2002 he partnered with Noam Bar and Yotam Ottolenghi to set up Ottolenghi in Notting Hill. Alongside Yotam Ottolenghi, Sami Tamimi is co-author of two bestselling cookbooks: Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and Jerusalem: A Cookbook, which the New York Times recently named as one of the 25 most influential cookbooks from the last 100 years. Sami’s third cookbook Falastin is co-authored with Tara Wigley and won the Fortnum & Mason Cookery Book of the Year 2021. Sami's first solo cookbook, Boustany, was published in 2025 and was shortlisted at the Guild of Food Writers Awards 2026.
portrait photo of Sami Tamimi

Praise for Jerusalem

An excellent writer, a marvellous novel. A thrilling read

Daily Telegraph

The most thought-provoking novel of the year. An utterly essential read

Irvine Welsh

Extraordinary, ambitious, bitingly, laugh-out-loud satirical . . . quite simply, a must-read

Daily Mail

Wildly inventive, funny and superbly original

The Times

Funny and exciting, Neate is never less than vivid, whether describing the hideous conditions of an African prison, or a run-down pub in London. Excellent

Daily Telegraph

A corrosive and blistering satire on colonialism and an eloquent, angry and relevant novel that speaks its own truth to power

Sunday Telegraph

A multi-layered, jam-packed and often satirical novel rich in ideas and argument. Neate's most inventive book to date . . . invites comparisons with David Mitchell's genre-busting Cloud Atlas

Guardian

Wonderful, impressive, fascinating. Neate is always an engaging and sharp writer

Independent on Sunday

Witty and acerbic dialogue, an unflagging comic plot, upbeat entertainment

Independent

A very funny take on Englishness, colonialism and the search for authenticity

Financial Times

A curious, ridiculous and insightful exploration of Englishness

Esquire

Clever, moving and wise

Marina Lewycka, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

Where Neate excels is in his talent for the incongruously horrible ... there are some excellent jokes along the way

Spectator

His most accomplished novel ... stands at some uber-cool crossroads between pop culture, social theory, racial politics and an old-fashioned belief in the power of storytelling ... it's a tricky thing to keep so many balls spinning but Neate makes it look easy

Metro