In 1991, Jose Saramago’s portrayal of a spiteful and adolescent God in The Gospel According to Jesus Christ provoked such an outrage in Portugal that the government withdrew the book from consideration from the European Literary Prize. Despairing of the backlash, he moved to the Canary Islands to live out the remainder of his life free of the stultifying Catholic conservatism of his native country.

It is fitting, then, that the final book published by the Nobel laureate before his death last year would be another excursion into the catechism: this time, a reimagining of the Book of Genesis through the eyes of Cain. Christian tradition teaches that Cain, the eldest son of Adam and Eve, was condemned by God to wander the earth as punishment for the murder of his younger brother Abel in a fit of jealousy; in Saramago’s account, Cain witnesses the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses’ sermon on Mount Sinai and the construction of Noah’s Ark, becoming disillusioned with the seemingly arbitrary nature of God’s justice and demanding He be held to account for the undue suffering inflicted upon humanity.

Though Saramago was a lifelong atheist, it would be mistaken to expect an antireligious screed to bookend his illustrious literary career. Rather, Cain reads as more of a friendly quarrel with Christianity – occasionally teasing, but never mocking or dismissive of the moral contradictions that he probes. The author’s eye for the absurd is on full display and his prose rivals the elegance of his most famous works, Blindness and Seeing. Both a fitting end to Saramago’s career and a marvellous introduction to Portugal’s finest novelist.

Sean Gleeson is a freelance reviewer