["A Single Light"] is a short book, not more than 30,000 words. (How often good books are short!) I read it twice, to see whether it was as fine as it seemed. It was even better.

Basically a parable, "A Single Light" is a message of love and need, hung round a deaf-and-dumb girl….

The unnamed girl's story is told in the simplest terms. As it moves to its climax, we see how her presence changes the lives of those around her: the priest, his housekeeper, the towns-people—even the visiting art-expert from America, who discovers a priceless Renaissance sculpture of the Christ Child hidden in the local church.

The girl, who has long since accepted the statue as the counterpart of a real child she once nursed, flees with it to the woods. The people of Almas, deciding she is a witch, are prepared to kill her, until...