The Cabala

A young American in Rome encounters a mysterious cohort of aristocrats in the Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s debut novel.

In love with all things classical, the narrator of Thornton Wilder’s The Cabala is entranced by the timeless city of Rome. With the Great War finally over, he’s spending a year among Rome’s salons and cafes. But he only comes to understand the grand and crumbling metropolis when a friend introduces him to a secret society of intellectuals known as the Cabala.

Charmed by the young American, the elegant and idiosyncratic members of the Cabala give him the nickname Samuele. He soon becomes their confidant and go-between, privy to their intimate dramas, scandals, and insecurities. As living embodiments of ancient gods, these peculiar characters impress upon Samuele that nothing in life is truly eternal.
The Cabala is a semiautobiographical novel based on Thornton Wilder’s time at the American Academy in Rome during the 1920s. First published in 1926, it launched his reputation as one of his generation’s finest storytellers.