Chaim Potok was born and educated in New York. After being ordained as a rabbi, he took a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a chaplain with the US Forces in Korea from 1955 to 1957. Chaim Potok is married and has two daughters and a son.

His novels: The Chosen, The Promise, In the Beginning, The Book of Lights, My Name is Asher Lev, The Gift of Asher Lev and I Am The Clay, have all been published by Penguin. He is also the auther of Wanderings, a history of the Jews; of a children's book, The Tree of Here; and of three plays, Out of the Depths, Sins of the Father and The Play of Lights.

"Anyone who finds it is finding a jewel. Its themes are profound and universal."

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

It is the now-classic story of two fathers and two sons and the pressures on all of them to pursue the religion they share in the way that is best suited to each. And as the boys grow into young men, they discover in the other a lost spiritual brother, and a link to an unexplored world that neither had ever considered before. In effect, they exchange places, and find the peace that neither will ever retreat from again....