Published: 13 November 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
WHEN IT WAS FIRST SUGGESTED to Yuval Noah Harari that he appear as a character in the illustrated version of Sapiens, his mega-bestselling “brief history of humankind”, which is about to be published in graphic form, he did not jump at the idea. “I vetoed it,” he says over the phone from his home outside Tel Aviv. “I try to keep myself mostly outside my books.”
Sapiens has been one of the most spectacular publishing successes of the past decade, selling more than 10 million copies since it was translated into English in 2014, and its enormous popularity has turned a little-known Israeli history professor into one of the most influential public intellectuals on the planet.
But for all his ambition and influence, Harari cuts a rather sober figure. Slim, bespectacled and shaven-headed, he speaks softly but insistently not just about our distant past but also of the near future of humanity and the various existential threats looming. “If Harari weren’t always out in public,” a New Yorker profile noted earlier this year, “one might mistake him for a recluse.”
So it’s curious to see the 44-year-old appearing in Sapiens: A Graphic History, serving as an avuncular cartoon tour guide through the early days of humanity.
FULL STORY A new chapter in the evolution of Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens (Guardian)
Image: Yuval Noah Harari, drawn by Daniel Casanave for Sapiens: A Graphic History
