Cain

José Saramago

Harvill Secker, 2011 - Fiction - 150 pages

"In this, his last novel, Saramago daringly reimagines the characters and narratives of the Bible through the story of Cain. Condemned to wander forever after he kills Abel, he is whisked around in time and space. He experiences the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Joshua at the battle of Jericho, Job's ordeal, and finally Noah's ark and the Flood. And over and over again Cain encounters an unjust, even cruel God. A startling, beautifully written, and powerful book, in all ways a fitting end to Saramago's extraordinary career"--

About the author

Born in Portugal in 1922, José Saramago was one of the most important writers of his generation. He was in his fifties when he came to prominence as a novelist with the publication of Baltasar & Blimunda. A huge body of work followed, which included plays, poetry, short stories, non-fiction and over a dozen novels, including Blindness which was made into an acclaimed film. He has been translated into more than forty languages, and in 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died on 18 June 2010, shortly after the Portuguese publication of Cain.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Cain
• Author: José Saramago
• Translated by: Margaret Jull Costa
• Publisher: Harvill Secker, 2011
• ISBN: 1846555434, 9781846555435
• Length: 150 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Historical / General; Fiction / Literary