"Dazzling, gritty brilliance. This is a novel of scorching distinction" Sunday Times
Under an endless and unforgiving sky, four travellers enter the Judean desert in search of redemption. Instead, amidst the barren rocks, they are met by a dangerous man, Musa, and fall under his dark influence. But there is a fervent, solitary figure also sharing their landscape, denying the temptations of his neighbours, and, ultimately, the needs of his own body. So begin forty days and nights in one of the most inhospitable terrains on earth. Jim Crace has enjoyed great success in both Britain and United States and his work is widely translated. He is the prize-winning author of nine previous books, including Continent (winner of the 1986 Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize), Quarantine (winner of the 1998 Whitbread Novel of the Year and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) and Being Dead (winner of the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award). He lives in Birmingham.
