Book details

Book description

Amongst the ancient papyri of the Dead Sea, a remarkable scroll is discovered. Written in the first century AD, it purports to be the true account of the life of Jesus, as told by Youdas the sicarios - Judas Iscariot: the missing Gospel of Judas. If authentic, it will be one of the most incendiary documents in the history of humankind. The task of proving - or disproving - its validity falls to Father Leo Newman, one of the world's leading experts in Koine, the demotic Greek of the Roman Empire, and a man the newspapers like to call a 'renegade priest'. But as Leo absorbs himself in Judas' testimony, the stories of his own life haunt him. The story of his forbidden yet irresistible love for a married woman. The story of his mother's passionate and tragic affair amidst the war-time ruins of Rome. They are stories of love and betrayal that may threaten his faith just as deeply as the Gospel of Judas... With a dramatic narrative that spans from the Europe of the Second World War to Jerusalem two thousand years after Jesus' birth, THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS is a compelling and erudite thriller. It is elegant and intelligently stylistic deliberately written with the weight of Modernist tradition behind it. GLASGOW HERALD A gripping read with a suitably dramatic climax. DAILY EXPRESS Simon Mawer tells a gripping, utterly compelling story. He weaves together the threads of his complex plot with a deftness that keeps the reader mesmerised to the very end of the book. THE TIMES This is a throughly enjoyable and extremely well-written novel. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH Simon Mawer was born in 1948 in England, and spent his childhood there, in Cyprus and in Malta. He now lives with his wife and two children in Italy, and teaches at the English School in Rome.