Viking This is the 2013 granta best young british novelist A visceral retelling of the events surrounding the life of Jesus Hilary Mantel. Guardian. Books of the Year He was a traitor. a rabble-... leader. a rebel. a liar and a pretender to the throne. We have tried to forget him here. Now. a year after Yehoshuahs death. four people tell their stories. His mother flashes between grief and rage while trouble brews between her village and the occupying soldiers. Iehuda. who was once Yehoshuahs friend. recalls how he came to lose his faith and find a place among the Romans. Caiaphas. the High Priest at the great Temple in Jerusalem. tries to hold the peace between Rome and Judea. Bar-Avo. a rebel. strives to bring that peace tumbling down Viscerally powerful in its depictions of the realities of the period:. massacres and riots. animal ...