For years, I’ve been meaning to read the work of José Maria de Eça de Queirós. New Directions has published a handful of his books, and I’ve picked up a few, but until now, I had only considered them prospective reads. When New Directions recently published his novella Adam and Eve in Paradise, I figured I should finally dive in. Given its length, I thought it would be a manageable entry point, even though I knew this short novella about the dawn of humanity likely wasn’t emblematic of his larger body of work. It turns out that this comic and strange novella was a great way to get me excited for more.

The book begins comically, referencing James Ussher, the 17th-century Archbishop who famously calculated the exact moment of Creation. I knew I was in for something playful:

Adam, the Father of Mankind, was created on the twenty-eighth day of October at two o’clock in the afternoon . . . Or so, very solemnly, declares that most learned and most eminent fellow, James Ussher, Bishop of Meath, Archbishop of Armagh, and Chancellor of St Patrick’s Cathedral, in his Annales veteris et novi testamenti.

While the novella is certainly comic, it is also grounded, philosophical, and poetic—thanks in no small part to Margaret Jull Costa’s brilliant translation. The novella’s satire sharpens as it playfully reimagines the traditional Adam and Eve story, subverting expectations by portraying Adam not as the fully formed, wise first human lounging in a lush garden with no worries but instead as a more instinctual, beastly figure, “his whole large, study body [. . .] covered in curly, glossy hair, apart from his elbows and his rough knees.” This sets the stage for a comic exploration of human evolution, where Adam is more focused on survival than on naming God’s creatures.

Our venerable Father was certainly not a pleasant sight when, on that autumn morning, Jehovah tenderly helped him down from his Tree! And yet despite the fear and dread in those round, amber-yellow eyes, there shone in them a superior beauty—the Intelligent Energy that was stumblingly leading him, on bowed legs, out of the forest where he had spent his centuries-long morning leaping and shrieking through the high branches.

As we follow Adam through his comic mishaps—like watching dinosaurs fight—we witness his gradual transformation into something more “human.” Eve plays a central role in this transformation, and the novella thoughtfully explores her desire for knowledge and the way she uses that knowledge to take steps toward civilization—“home, family, tribe, city.” Interestingly, telling the story of Adam and Eve in a more naturalistic way makes their eventual emergence as humans feel even more miraculous than the Biblical account. It’s not just about survival; it’s about the complex development of tools and thinking that led to the civilizations we know today.

But as the novella shifts toward its ending, the focus on suffering invites a more reflective, philosophical consideration of the uneasy relationship between intellectual progress and suffering. It leaves us pondering just how much of a miracle it has been for humanity to gain knowledge—and what that knowledge has cost.

As I alluded to above, Margaret Jull Costa’s translation is a standout, beautifully conveying the novella’s subtle humor and philosophical weight. I recommend checking it out.