1950 (Swedish: Barabbas)
Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read
Almost a novella, but this novel needs no more pages. We all know Barabbas, the one in whose place Jesus was crucified. But what do we know about him other than his name? Here Pär Lagerkvist thought about what might have happened to Barabbas afterwards.
The story is believable, many early Christians went the way Barabbas goes in the book. There is the wish to believe, the doubt, the inability to come to terms with what happens. Something that still is in every Christian today, I think.
And even if this is not at all what happened to the protagonist, it's an interesting thought to see what could have been.
They even made a film out of the story, Barabbas was portrayed by Anthony Quinn.
From the back cover:
"Barabbas is the acquitted; the man whose life was exchanged for that of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified upon the hill of Golgotha. Barabbas is a man condemned to have no god. 'Christos Iesus' is carved on the disk suspended from his neck, but he cannot affirm his faith. He cannot pray. He can only say, 'I want to believe.'"
Pär Lagerkvist received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1951 "for the artistic vigour and true independence of mind with which he endeavours in his poetry to find answers to the eternal questions confronting mankind".
Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.
Original Post on Let's Read.
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