Granta Best Young British Novelist
'A visceral retelling of the events surrounding the life of Jesus' Hilary Mantel, Guardian, Books of the Year
'He was a traitor, a rabble-leader, a rebel, a liar and a pretender to the throne. We have tried to forget him here.'
Now, a year after Yehoshuah's death, four people tell their stories. His mother flashes between grief and rage while trouble brews between her village and the occupying soldiers. Iehuda, who was once Yehoshuah's friend, recalls how he came to lose his faith and find a place among the Romans. Caiaphas, the High Priest at the great Temple in Jerusalem, tries to hold the peace between Rome and Judea. Bar-Avo, a rebel, strives to bring that peace tumbling down.
Viscerally powerful in its depictions of the realities of the period- massacres and riots, animal sacrifice and human betrayal, The Liars' Gospel finds echoes of the present in the past. It was a time of political power-play and brutal tyranny and occupation. Young men and women took to the streets to protest. Dictators put them down with iron force. Rumours spread from mouth to mouth. Rebels attacked the greatest Empire the world has ever known. The Empire gathered its forces to make those rebels pay.
And in the midst of all of that, one inconsequential preacher died. And either something miraculous happened, or someone lied.
Praise for The Liars' Gospel-
'Ambitious, genius' Tom Holland, Guardian
'Remarkable . . . paints the sweep of history through the sharp pain of human love and loss' Observer
'Succeeds magnificently, superb, brilliant. A provocative and mesmerizing novel' New Statesman
Naomi Alderman grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community in northwest London. Her first novel, Disobedience, was published in 10 languages and won the Orange Award for New Writers and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year prize. Like her second novel, The Lessons, it was broadcast as Radio 4's Book at Bedtime. She is a frequent radio broadcaster and a regular contributor to the Guardian and Prospect. She lives in London.
Industry Reviews
Witty, dark and compelling -- Charlotte Mendelson
The dark wit that characterised her previous novels, Disobedience and The Lessons, runs through this book as an undercurrent, but The Liars' Gospel shows the hand of a mature novelist, a daring and accomplished work on a broad canvas. She is as much at home describing the sorrow of a mother as the cut and thrust of theological debate, as convincing on the weariness of a man forced into moral compromise as the rush of blood in a teenage boy caught up in his first riot. She paints the sweep of history through the sharp pain of human love and loss, and it is a remarkable achievement. -- Stephanie Merritt * The Observer *
Exciting, entertaining and enthralling read - this is story telling of the very highest order. It's certainly one of my books of the year. * Bookbag *
Remarkable. Alderman is a supremely talented writer -- Joanne Harris
A series of thoughtful, humane sketches that seek to earnestly put the meat of character on the bones of the bible... An evocative, secular exploration of the New Testaments' sprawling horizons * Metro *
Marvellously told and wonderfully done -- Maeve Kennedy
Such intensity ... a big book about history and violence, you can feel the blood running off the page. It is also a very personal and human book -- Dreda Say Mitchell
First piece I've read that puts you completely into the Jewish history. A fascinating new look -- Cahal Dallat
Gripping and visceral -- Arifa Akbar * The Independent *
'The descriptions of violence are visceral. Parts could be describing contemporary Afghanistan with only a change of names... indisputably elegant. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotland on Sunday *
Stunningly accomplished ... a novel of such intensity, meaning and depth that it must be destined to become a classic -- Bidisha
Brilliantly evocative... Naomi Alderman has given us an entire Jewish gospel. Yehoshuah is a Jewish Jesus, the creation of a Jewish novelist; and yet it is the genius and the generosity of Alderman's novel, it seems to me, that it does not preclude an alternative perspective, one in which mystery does indeed haunt the events it describes. -- Tom Holland * Guardian *
