Asenath
BRIEF BIO:
Anna Patricio is a debut novelist. Her historical fiction ASENATH is set in
Ancient Egypt. She is a lover of ancient history, especially Ancient Egypt,
Greece, Rome and Israel. She is also interested in getting to know more about
the Ancient Near East.
She studied Ancient History at Macquarie University. Though she knew there were very limited job openings for ancient history graduates, she pursued her degree anyway as it was something she had always been passionate about. Sometime after her graduation, the idea to tackle historical fiction appeared in her head, and she began happily pounding away on her laptop. ASENATH is her first novel.
Recently, she traveled to Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. In the past, she has also
been to Athens and Rome. She is currently working on a second novel which still takes place in Ancient Egypt, but hundreds of years after Asenath. She lives in Australia.
Hello, my name is Anna Patricio. I am a debut author. My historical novel
ASENATH is about the wife of Joseph (of the coat-of-many-colours).
Today, I am going to talk about this little-known Biblical woman and why I chose to write about her. Most of the time, when I tell people I have written about Asenath, I often get remarks such as, "Who's that? Joseph had a wife? I didn't know about that!" Neither did I, until later on in my life when I re-read
Joseph's story in more detail and learned that he married an Egyptian priestess.
So what do we know about Asenath? Only that she was the daughter of a priest of Heliopolis (referred to as "On" in the Bible; Heliopolis is the Greek name),
and that Pharaoh gave her in marriage to Joseph as his reward for interpreting
the monarch's dreams. And also that she gave Joseph two sons, Manasseh and
Ephraim, who would later form the double-tribe of Israel.
(As Joseph was Jacob's favourite son, his father naturally gave him a double
blessing through his sons.)
There are a few other accounts about her. But then, they are all fictional.
Probably the most known one would be the first century
Greek story JOSEPH AND ASENATH, which has as its theme Asenath's conversion to Judaism. Basically, in the tale, Asenath is a proud Egyptian noblewoman who hates men and is intent on never marrying. One day, however, she sees Joseph outside her window and falls in love with him. She asks her father to seek Joseph's hand in marriage. Alas, Joseph refuses because she does not worship his God. Devastated, Asenath locks herself in her tower and weeps. During this time, an angel who looks like Joseph appears to her. Asenath then converts to Judaism, and the angel feeds her sacred honey to symbolize her new faith. When Asenath meets Joseph again, he then (happily) agrees to marry her.
There is more to the tale, including a battle between Pharaoh's son and
Joseph's youngest brother Benjamin, which occurs when the former tries to
murder Joseph and kidnap Asenath. Yet another interesting ancient tale has
Asenath as Dinah's (Joseph's half-sister) long-lost daughter, and therefore Joseph's niece. When Asenath was a baby, Joseph's brothers took her out to the wilderness and abandoned her there. An eagle then took her to Egypt, where she was deposited at the temple altar in Heliopolis. The high priest then adopted her as his daughter. Years later, when she was a grown woman and Joseph became vizier, he met her and recognized her as his niece as she bore a medallion with Hebrew inscriptions.
These are one of the very few sources I came across while researching on
Asenath. I was pretty disappointed, as I was hoping to get more details on the
relationship between Joseph and his Egyptian wife. Furthermore, the
contemporary historical/Biblical fiction I read of Joseph didn't dwell much on
this factor either. Finally, this desire, coupled with my fondness for the
story of Joseph, led me to imagine my own story about Asenath.
I took some liberties with her life, such as her childhood and parentage. Because she is a pretty obscure character, I thus felt free to stretch my imagination as far as I pleased. I thought, "If the ancient tales
rewrote her parentage, such as that aforementioned one which has her as Dinah's daughter, perhaps it wouldn't hurt if I did too?"
Hence, my novel ASENATH.
ASENATH
is now available in ebook edition, published by Imajin Books. Paperback edition is coming out soon. I invite you all to check it out.
Also please visit me at my blog/website www.annapatricio.blogspot.com.
Feel free to contact me too.
Thank you for having me on your blog, Lucinda.