*Winner of the Whitbread Novel Award**Shortlisted for the Booker Prize* ‘Dazzling, gritty brilliance’ – Sunday Times ‘Completely captivating’ – Literary Review Jim Crace's provocative retelling of Jesus' forty day fast in the desert is a classic that tampers with tradition. Moving and fascinating in equal measure, Quarantine is a stunningly realized novel from one of the great writers of our time. Under an endless and unforgiving sky, five travellers venture into the Judean wilderness in search of redemption. Instead, amidst the barren rocks, they are met by a dangerous man, Musa, and fall under his dark influence. As the unforgiving days and bitter nights erode their resolve, it becomes clear that one among them will go further than the rest: a fervent, solitary figure, he denies the temptations of his neighbours, and, ultimately, the needs of his own body. ‘One of the finest novels I’ve read in years’ – The Times ‘Crace’s desert shimmers with a sense of the miraculous’– Express on Sunday ‘Stunning. A writer of hallucinatory skill’ – John Updike