Quarantine

Quarantine is a novel by Jim Crace. It was the winner of the 1997 Whitbread Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction the same year. Plot summary Set in the Judean desert, 2000 years ago, it features seven main characters: Musa: a greedy trader, believed by the Galilean to be a manifestation of Satan Miri: Musa's pregnant wife Marta: fasting between dawn and dusk in an attempt to turn her barren womb fertile Shim: a young traveller Aphas: fasting between dawn and dusk in an attempt to remove the cancer from his abdomen Badu: believed to be deaf and mute; good at catching animals The Galilean/Gally/Jesus: aiming to fast for 40 days and nights with divine help; plagued by religious/spiritual hallucinations/visions When Quarantine begins, the trader, Musa, is suffering from a fever in his tent in the open scrubland on the way to Jericho. There, he and his wife Miri are abandoned by their caravan, who believe him to be on the verge of death. They see a group of four travellers, some distance apart, heading in their direction. The travellers are on their way to find shelter for 40 days and 40 nights – the 'Quarantine' of the title.