Stephen Greenblatt

As Man Booker Prize-winning writer Howard Jacobson retells The Merchant of Venice, 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, he travels with Alan Yentob to the ghetto in Venice to explore Shakespeare's most performed play - and in particular the character of the most divisive fictional Jew in history, Shylock. On their journey, Howard and Alan examine the evidence behind the charge of antisemitism against Shakespeare. How did his old Jew from Venice become such a useful propaganda tool during the Third Reich, and what was behind the absurd and infamous proposal to cut off a 'pound of flesh'?

Lorsque le chaos règne, alors que des souverains barbares et fanatiques, ecclésiastiques ou laïques, brûlent systématiquement des bibliothèques entières, des chasseurs de livres, héros secrets de l'histoire, parcourent le monde pour sauver et copier des textes, menacés par la folie des censeurs, dans le noble but d'empêcher la perte définitive du savoir humain.