By François Mauriac

“I know now that love does exist in this world. But it is crucified in the world and we with it.”

The Lamb is a powerfully concentrated story of desire, power, and sac­rifice. When Xavier Dartigelongue, en route to the seminary, encounters the tragically charismatic Jean de Mirbel and learns of his failing marriage, he decides to postpone his priesthood for the sake of “saving” these two particular sinners. His visit to the Mirbel household quickly immerses him in the demands of lust and the darkness of despair, bringing him to the discomfiting realization that his salvific mission is rapidly in danger of becoming simply a project of self-preservation. 

The antepenultimate of the dozens of novels that Mauriac wrote over his career, first published in 1954, The Lamb probes the darkest corners of the human heart to produce an inventive, provocative, and deeply moving chronicle of fear and hope.

François Mauriac (1885–1970) was a French Catholic novelist, poet, critic, and journalist. Critically acclaimed and respected, Mauriac received the Grand Prix du roman de l’Académie française for his novel The Desert of Love; was awarded the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur; and named laureate of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Paperback: 158pp.

ISBN: 978-1949899009