The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

In the People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks tells the possible story behind the "Sarajevo Haggadah" http://www.haggadah.ba/?x=1, a an illuminated manuscript containing the traditional text of the Passover Haggadah. It is the oldest Sephardic Haggadah in the world, originating in Spain around 1350. It is now owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. Pages from the Sarajevo Haggedah can be seen at: http://www.talmud.de/sarajevo/einstieg.htm

The people of the book include Dr. Hanna Heath, an Australian conservator who goes to Sarajevo in 1996 to assist the UN to restore the book for the museum. In the course of her work on the book she finds the wing of a month, a hair, wine stains, salt crystals. Each item becomes part of the story of the people from the book's past: Lola, Sarajevo, 1944; Dr Hirschfeldt, Vienna, 1894; Rabbi Judah Aryeh and Father Giovanni Vestorini, Venice, 1609; Ruth Ben Shousahn, Tarragona, 1492; Zahra bint Ibrahim al-Tarek, Seville, 1480. As we go back in history the full story of the book is unveiled.

The book is symbolic of the racial harmony that used to exist, firstly in mediaeval Spain where the book was created during the Convivencia and later in Bosnia where, before the Nazi invasion, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived and worshipped side by side.