Quarantine

Paperback, 256 pages

Published 1997

Picador eBook (2011)

Callil-Toibin 200 Best Novels (1950-1999)

Jim Crace's novel is the brilliantly imagined story of Christ's forty days in the wilderness, a tale of three men, two women, and a curious wanderer whose peculiar fate is transformed into legend. Dazzling, gritty, and utterly compelling, Quarantine is a work at once timeless and timely - a parable for the ages.

Two thousand years ago four travellers enter the Judean desert to fast and pray for their lost souls. In the blistering heat and barren rocks they encounter the evil merchant Musa — madman, sadist, rapist, even a Satan — who holds them in his tyrannical power. Yet there is also another, a faint figure in the distance, fasting for forty days, a Galilean who they say has the power to work miracles... Here, trapped in the wilderness, their terrifying battle for survival begins.

Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year and a Booker Prize finalist.