Pietà wood sculpture, c. 1420, St Kunibert, Cologne © Manfred Wegener

This son has become so light, wasted away literally to skin and bones, his legs thin as sticks, so light that his mother can hold up his torso effortlessly on the flat of her hand…

Extract from Wonder Beyond Belief: On Christianity no longer available online.

 

Navid Kermani is a writer and scholar who lives in Cologne, Germany. He has received numerous accolades for his literary and academic work, including the 2015 Peace Prize of the German Publishers’ Association, Germany’s most prestigious cultural award. His recent books include Between Quran and Kafka: West-Eastern Affinities and Upheaval: The Refugee Trek Through Europe. Wonder Beyond Belief: On Christianity, translated by Tony Crawford, is published by Polity Press in hardback and eBook.
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Tony Crawford is a freelance American translator and editor based in Berlin, specilalising in art history, architecture and aesthetics.