Noah Gordon

1928–1999

Noah Gordon was an American novelist best known for historical fiction exploring medicine, faith and cultural exchange. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1926, he trained as a journalist and worked as a reporter and editor before becoming a full-time author. He achieved international success with The Physician, which follows an eleventh-century English healer who travels to Persia to study medicine under the renowned physician Ibn Sina.

The Physician became the first volume of the Cole family trilogy, followed by Shaman, set during the westward expansion and American Civil War, and Matters of Choice, centred on a modern physician. Gordon’s other novels include The Last Jew, about the persecution of Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, and The Winemaker, set in nineteenth-century Spain. His books combine extensive historical research with stories of migration, professional vocation, religious identity and survival.

Periods and events

Formation of England Islamic Golden Age Nineteenth-Century Europe American Civil War Native American History Modern Israel

Series

Series by Noah Gordon (1 series)

The Cole Trilogy in Order

by Noah Gordon 3 books 4.3

The Cole Trilogy follows three physicians from the same family across nearly a thousand years of medical and social change. The Physician begins in eleventh-century England and Persia, where Rob Cole crosses religious and cultural boundaries to acquire formal medical training. Shaman moves the family story to nineteenth-century…