Barabbas, A Novel (V-134)

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." In his introduction to this edition, Lucien Maury writes, "Had Par Lagerkvist written in a language more easily accessible to Western readers, he would undoubtedly have been acclaimed as one of the leaders of our time, as one of the few, whose necessary, men who can hold aloft a light to guide our footsteps through the obsessive darkness of our world."