My Name Was Judas

Jul 18, 2025 4:13 AM

Author:C. K. Stead

My Name Was Judas

We all know the story of Jesus told by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but what about the version according to Judas?

In this witty, original and teasingly controversial account, some forty years after the death of Jesus, Judas finally tells the story as he remembers it. Looking back on his childhood and youth from an old age the gospel writers denied him, Judas recalls his friendship with Jesus; their schooling together; their families; the people who would go on to be disciples and followers; their journeys together and their dealings with the powers of Rome and the Temple.

His is a story of friendship and rivalry, of a time of uncertainty and enquiry, a testing of belief, endurance and loyalty.

Reviews

C. K. Stead is challenging, fun, urbane and brilliant. Read him

—— Spectator

Stead's book delights in subtle comedy and takes care to puncture all kinds of minor myths...Written with glowing simplicity and rich in delicate humour...[A] thought-provoking, witty and highly topical novel

—— James Wood , Daily Telegraph

[An] elegant, calm novel...Stead writes a cool, reasonable prose......Stead maintains an eye unblinkingly opposed to the transcendental

—— Guardian

A subtly potent revisionist account of the life and death of Jesus

—— Sunday Times

A gifted and intelligent novelist

—— Independent

CK Stead, New Zealand's most distinguished man of letters - scholar, critic and poet, as well as novelist - has written a fiction that is remarkable, intelligent and moving

—— Allan Massie , Scotsman

Brilliantly imagined...Among Stead's many achievements is a convincing social, political and physical backdrop...his creation of a coherent, rival story - clever, moving and sometimes witty, with fully human characters - is nothing short of a revelation

—— Sam Phipps , Herald

A pleasingly unpredictable mix of traditional and radical... It's clever, thought-provoking

—— Independent

Pynchon can be totally maddening, but he has a great sense of mischief

—— Douglas Kennedy , The Times

Clever and inventive in a mad professor kind of way...Intermittently warmed by paragraph-long sunbeams of iridescent prose-poetry

—— Economist

A fast elasticism running from slangy to stately, a voice full of echoes, littered with jokes and songs, and often reaching into a curious tenderness, a tone of laid back elegy.... this amazing writer continues to be amazing, and in much the same way he always was

—— London Review of Books

‘[Toni Morrison’s] irreverence was godly’

—— Guardian

A beautiful book and it's beautifully written

—— Kit de Waal , Good Housekeeping UK

My favourite book of all time

—— Sareeta Domingo , Good Housekeeping

Morrison's stunning trilogy is an evocation of black life over the past four centuries. It defies summary. Completed almost 25 years ago, these novels top anything produced by any American writer including Hemingway, Updike and DeLillo

—— Trevor Phillips , Sunday Times

[A] beautiful, haunting novel

—— Stig Abell , Sunday Times

More than one of Morrison's books could be classed as masterpieces, but this one is famous for a reason: everyone should read it

—— Bernice McFadden, author of SUGAR , Guardian

A magnificent achievement...an American masterpiece

—— A.S. Byatt , Guardian

A triumph

—— Margaret Atwood , New York Times Book Review

She melds horror and beauty in a story that will disturb the mind forever

—— Sunday Times

Toni Morrison is not just an important contemporary novelist but a major figure in our national literature

—— New York Review of Books

A work of genuine force. . .Beautifully written

—— Washington Post

There is something great in Beloved: a play of human voices, consciously exalted, perversely stressed, yet holding true. It gets you

—— The New Yorker

Superb. . .A profound and shattering story that carries the weight of history. . .Exquisitely told

—— Cosmopolitan

This is a wonderful novel about slavery, freedom, parental loss and revenants

—— The Week, Thomas Keneally

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