'After the first exquisite songs were intercepted by radio telescope, UN diplomats debated long and hard whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to reach the world that would become known as Rakhat. In the Rome offices of the Society of Jesus, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send. The Jesuit scientists went to Rakhat to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went for the greater glory of God. They meant no harm.' Taking you on an extraordinary journey to a distant planet and to the very centre of the human soul, Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow is an astonishing literary debut - a powerful, haunting and exciting novel about the nature of faith and what it means to be 'human'.