For the Love of God, Don’t Sell Yourself Short: Reflections on Job

Hoda Barakat (b. Beirut) is a Lebanese writer. She studied French Literature and worked in academia and research, and more recently in journalism. Barakat left Lebanon in 1989 and settled in Paris. She has published five novels, two plays and a journal, and has participated in many cultural events. She has received a number of literary awards and two French honorary decorations. Her works have been translated to several languages.



For the Love of God, Don’t Sell Yourself Short: Reflections on Job - Hoda Barakat | Lecture



Hoda Barakat visits the story of Job for a rereading, posing questions on the “meanings” of the trial through which Satan and God had decided to put his faith and innocence to the test, and on the choices that made him the model of good and patience among his fellow men. The writer ponders the depth and motives of the resistance that made Job immune to blasphemy, and transformed him into an individual who took his strength from within—realizing as he did that his fate was sealed between two great and superseding powers, to which he could hardly ever hope to answer. The writer proposed that somewhere between the popular folktale and its biblical origins, Job may have told an altogether different version of his story.