The Liars\' Gospel - Naomi Alderman

This is the 2013 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.