Cain

The last novel by Nobel Prize–winner José Saramago, Cain daringly reimagines the characters and narratives of the Old Testament.

Saramago's tale runs from the Garden of Eden, when God realizes he has forgotten to give Adam and Eve the gift of speech, to the moment when Noah’s Ark lands on the dry peak of Ararat. Cain, the despised, the murderer, is Saramago’s protagonist.

Condemned to wander forever after he kills his brother Abel, Cain makes his way through the world in the company of a per...