"Carrre has managed to renovate the idea of what nonfiction writing can be. Profoundly intimate, historically and philosophically serious but able to cast compulsive narrative spells, Carrre's books are hybrids, marrying deep reporting to scholarly explorations of theology, philosophy, psychology, personal history and historiography . Carrre has managed to write one masterpiece after another . The need to understand the role you have in the larger human story is at the heart of this beautiful, difficult book. Difficult not in form but in feeling, The Kingdom manages to get at the contradictions of what we call intimacy." --Wyatt Mason, The New York Times Magazine "To open the pages of this book is to fall into a world of speculation, memoir, history, and belief and disbelief in untidy measures. a masterwork that takes readers into the heart of Christianity's first days, as well into the depths of the author's psyche. The only category it really belongs in is tour de force.
" -- Ilene Cooper, Booklist (starred review) "Memoir, fiction, and history combine in a stirring portrayal of the world of the first Christians . A passionate, digressive, empathetic history of religious rebels and the mystery of faith." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred Review) "The latest from Carrre ( Limonov ) is a tale of modern and ancient Christianity, filtered through a text that's equal parts memoir, academic essay, and fictional exploration. a frequently fascinating book written by a curious, sharp mind." -- Publishlers Weekly "Emmanuel Carrre [is] one of the best known and most innovative French writers." --Rachel Donadio, The New York Times "I left the Catholic Church at thirteen and have not spent much time thinking about religion since then. But Emmanuel Carrre's The Kingdom kept me pinned to its pages until the end. It is personal and rigorous, skeptical and open, casual and profound, and its speculative portrait of Saint Luke, its main character, is as compelling as any fictional life I've read lately.
" -- Luc Sante, author of The Other Paris "My favorite books about Christianity are Augustine's Confessions , Origen's Contra Celsum , and, now, Emmanuel Carrre's The Kingdom . Both a pocket history and a gripping (and surprising!) intellectual self-portrait, I know of nothing else quite like it --and I wish like all hell I'd written it. Carrre is one of our planet's most compelling, inimitable writers, and The Kingdom is, in my view, his greatest book yet." -- Tom Bissell, author of Apostle: Travels Among the Tombs of the Twelve.