A Canticle For Leibowitz

A Canticle for Leibowitz is a 1959 science fiction novel by author Walter M. Miller, Jr. Its post-apocalyptic narrative spans thousands of years, focused on a Catholic abbey in the southwest region of the United States of America. The abbey serves as headquarters for the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, a saint Miller invented for the narrative. The monks in the abbey are dedicated to preserving books and scientific knowledge to be used again whenever the current Dark Age ends.

Plot Summary

The novel unfolds in three parts. In the first part, a Utah monk named Francis Gerard finds a fallout shelter in the desert. The fallout shelter was meant to protect its inhabitants from what the characters refer to as the Flame Deluge—the most recent nuclear holocaust. Many people blamed scientific knowledge for the Flame Deluge, so they outlawed reading and learning during an anti-Renaissance period known as the Simplification. Mobs persecuted and slaughtered academics and other educated people.

The monks revere Leibowitz, a weapons engineer who was one of the monastery’s founders. When the 17-year-old novice, Francis, finds the fallout shelter—after a wandering hermit gives him directions—he also finds a cache of Leibowitz’s documents.