Elijah, a biblical prophet in the Middle East during the ninth century B.C., confronts the evil of the pagan Phoenician princess Jezebel and finds love in the strange land of Zarephath with a young widow, only to have his new-found happiness shattered by tragedy.

"In this, his last novel, Saramago daringly reimagines the characters and narratives of the Bible through the story of Cain. Condemned to wander forever after he kills Abel, he is whisked around in time and space. He experiences the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Joshua at the battle of Jericho, Job's ordeal, and finally Noah's ark and the Flood. And over and over again Cain encounters...

"A book that begins before Adam and ends after us. In this magisterial work, figures of the Bible and its whole outline emerge in a new light: one that is often astonishing and disquieting, as indeed is the book from which they originate. Roberto Calasso's The Book of All Books is a narration that moves through the Bible as if through a forest, where every branch--every verse--may offer some revelation. Where a man named Saul becomes the first king...