Following the life of Christ from conception to crucifixion, Saramago's narrative focuses on a naive Jesus who, entirely susceptible to human desires, chooses to cohabit with Mary Magdalene. The despotic God, thirsty for blood and power, with whom Jesus leads an imbalanced and unsettled relationship resurrects a celestial tyrant from the annals of the Old Testament and yet the transferral of Joseph's perplexing guilt to his son injects the story with the substance of modern day psychology. But it is the identity of the mysterious beggar at the Annunciation and the strangely compassionate shepherd with whom the wandering Jesus spends his formative years which provide an innovative and unnerving twist to the traditional version of the Gospel story and lead to the reconsideration of the age-old debate on good and evil.
This is a controversial and intriguing investigation into the worth of Christianity by one of the great figures in European literature. A fine interlacing of sombre realism, grotesque fantasy and wry humour, 'The Gospel According to Jesus Christ' is threaded with unveiled challenges and is designed to provoke.
Winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature
