[[jose]]In 1991, Jose Saramago’sportrayal of a spiteful andadolescent God in The GospelAccording to Jesus Christprovoked such an outrage inPortugal that the governmentwithdrew the book fromconsideration from theEuropean Literary Prize. Despairing of thebacklash, he moved to the Canary Islands tolive out the remainder of his life free of thestultifying Catholic conservatism of hisnative country.

It is fitting, then, that the final book publishedby the Nobel laureate before his deathlast year would be another excursion into thecatechism: this time, a reimagining of theBook of Genesis through the eyes of Cain.Christian tradition teaches that Cain, theeldest son of Adam and Eve, was condemnedby God to wander the earth as punishmentfor the murder of his younger brother Abelin a fit of jealousy; in Saramago’s account,Cain witnesses the destruction of Sodomand Gomorrah, Moses’ sermon on MountSinai and the construction of Noah’s Ark,becoming disillusioned with the seeminglyarbitrary nature of God’s justice anddemanding He be held to account for theundue suffering inflicted upon humanity.

Though Saramago was a lifelong atheist,it would be mistaken to expect an antireligiousscreed to bookend his illustriousliterary career. Rather, Cain reads as more ofa friendly quarrel with Christianity – occasionallyteasing, but never mocking ordismissive of the moral contradictions thathe probes. The author’s eye for the absurdis on full display and his prose rivals the eleganceof his most famous works, Blindnessand Seeing. Both a fitting end to Saramago’scareer and a marvellous introduction toPortugal’s finest novelist.

Sean Gleeson is a freelance reviewer