Henri Hendrix is an undocumented immigrant in Marion, Ohio where he manages an apartment building for low-income tenants. With help from protectors and by keeping a low profile, Henri has gotten away with being illegal for a very long time. Although he looks forty, Henri is actually very old. He’s ancient. Due to an odd genetic disposition, he recovers from injury and illness very quickly, and doesn’t age much. Back in the day, he was a notable Jewish religious personality from a dinky town in Galilee. He’s lost his wife and daughter in the old, doomed adventure, and ever since he’s just tried to live a normal boring life while helping others do the same… Meanwhile, Henri has a new Jewish girlfriend named Molly, and a conflict with a local real estate developer who wants his building. When Henri refuses to sell, the developer reports him to ICE because of the illegal Hispanic tenants in his building. And the chase is on…internationally. Both protectors and haters have their reasons for flushing Henri out. Will he ever appear again to mount his cause? The question is whether that chase shall indeed cause Henri (and Molly) to make a big splash on the world scene, or…is there another…better way? Does authentic life inhere in holding ground or moving on? Who is the better icon for a future humanity?...the landlord or the migrant?
Dan Yonah Johnson is from Ohio and his ancestors from far away. Convergences of Sephardic, Roma, French and Celtic roots are his long shadows over the veneer of Midwestern cultural and political balance. Largely, his working life has played out in the helping professions of ministry, education, and social work. But in later years, Dan’s avocation of dealing antiques has led him to ponder the history of Western culture’s subliminal allergy to an eastern religion it so widely and falsely claims as its own. Sometimes at night, Dan ruminates about the real migrant preacher of Nazareth…what he really wanted.


Dan Johnson grew up in a working-class neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. He studied History and Religion in college, Middle East Studies and Education at the graduate level, and ultimately landed in seminary where he met his wife. He migrated from being a rural parish pastor to taking up his father’s Jewish ancestry and converting to Judaism.

What he and his wife have most valued in religious life, of whatever configuration, is working in food pantries…which doesn’t have to be religious, but then again, it kind of is…in its own way.

Among other exploits, Dan learned much from ordinary people including immigrants when he taught English in an inner-city middle school, 5th graders in elementary school, and GED classes for middle-aged adults. He’s also been deeply impacted by folks when he worked as a staffer at a homeless shelter, an in-take counselor at a drug and alcohol rehab, and a social worker at an inner-city health clinic.

In later years, Dan became a trader in antiquities. He strives to rescue history, whether an old leather-bound book or a well-worn vessel from those who never knew the artifacts’ origins and cared even less. He feels he somewhat understands the ancient Qumran scribes who threw up their hands and jarred up their precious essentials, stashing them into caves for future generations. What else can you do in such times?

Title: Date of Birth Unknown: A Novel
Author: Dan Yonah Johnson
Publisher: Adelaide Books
Publisher Website: https://adelaidebooks.org/
Publisher Email: [email protected]
ISBN: 978-1955196239
Price: $19.60
Page Count: 312 pages
Formats: Paperback


Description of the company: ADELAIDE BOOKS LLC is a New York based independent company dedicated to publishing literary fiction and creative nonfiction. It was founded in July 2017 as an imprint of the Adelaide Literary Magazine, with the aim to facilitate publishing of novels, memoirs, and collections of short stories, poems, and essays by contributing authors of our magazine and other qualified writers.