num_pages: 313
description: Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed St Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of St Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness &amp; ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat &amp; implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological &amp; religious implications of the cyclical rise &amp; fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light) &amp; Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism &amp; Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how &amp; why a person is canonized.--Paul Hughes
language: English
title: A Canticle for Leibowitz
titlecomplete: A Canticle for Leibowitz
characters: Isaac Edward Leibowitz, Benjamin Eleazar bar Joshua
genres: Classics, Apocalyptic, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Religion, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction
ratings_count: 106952
series: St. Leibowitz
awards: awardedAt: -283968000000
name: Hugo Award
category: Best Novel, awardedAt: 157795200000
name: Locus Award
category: All-Time Best Novel
publisher: Bantam