Barabbas
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 1st uk ed., 2nd pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
What happens to the man who was spared so that another could die? Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist answers this haunting question with spare, unflinching prose, chronicling the life of the criminal released in place of Jesus Christ at the crowd's demand. Set against the raw and dusty landscape of ancient Jerusalem and the wider Roman world, the novel follows Barabbas — a hardened, solitary outcast — as he wanders through a life he neither chose nor fully understands, shadowed by a salvation he cannot bring himself to accept. Tormented by the memory of the man who died in his stead, he moves through the nascent world of early Christianity, a reluctant witness to a faith that burns in others yet eludes him entirely. Lagerkvist, the Swedish Nobel laureate, constructs a profound meditation on doubt, guilt, and the unbearable weight of an unearned reprieve. His minimalist yet deeply symbolic style strips the biblical world of grandeur, presenting instead a pitiless, psychologically raw portrait of a man condemned to live. Originally published in Swedish in 1950 and rendered into English here by Alan Blair — with a preface by Lucien Maury and a letter by André Gide — the novel stands as one of the towering achievements of 20th-century European literature. Whether Barabbas ever finds grace, or whether he is doomed to remain forever on the threshold of belief, is a question that will linger long after the final page.
Author: Pär Lagerkvist
Format: Hardback
Published: 1952, Chatto & Windus
Genre: Classic fiction
Edition: 1st uk ed., 2nd pr.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Chipped and worn with some minor damage
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
What happens to the man who was spared so that another could die? Barabbas by Pär Lagerkvist answers this haunting question with spare, unflinching prose, chronicling the life of the criminal released in place of Jesus Christ at the crowd's demand. Set against the raw and dusty landscape of ancient Jerusalem and the wider Roman world, the novel follows Barabbas — a hardened, solitary outcast — as he wanders through a life he neither chose nor fully understands, shadowed by a salvation he cannot bring himself to accept. Tormented by the memory of the man who died in his stead, he moves through the nascent world of early Christianity, a reluctant witness to a faith that burns in others yet eludes him entirely. Lagerkvist, the Swedish Nobel laureate, constructs a profound meditation on doubt, guilt, and the unbearable weight of an unearned reprieve. His minimalist yet deeply symbolic style strips the biblical world of grandeur, presenting instead a pitiless, psychologically raw portrait of a man condemned to live. Originally published in Swedish in 1950 and rendered into English here by Alan Blair — with a preface by Lucien Maury and a letter by André Gide — the novel stands as one of the towering achievements of 20th-century European literature. Whether Barabbas ever finds grace, or whether he is doomed to remain forever on the threshold of belief, is a question that will linger long after the final page.