José Saramago
1) Blindness
2) Skylight
In 1551, King João III of Portugal gave Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present: an elephant named Solomon. In The Elephant’s Journey, José Saramago imagines Solomon’s epic journey by foot across Europe with
...4) Cain
On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration—flags are hung...
José Saramago was eighteen months old when he moved from the village of Azinhaga with his father and mother to live in Lisbon. But he would return to the village throughout his childhood and adolescence to stay with his maternal grandparents, illiterate peasants in the eyes of the outside...
Manual of Painting and Calligraphy was José Saramago's first novel. Written eight years before the critically acclaimed Baltasar and Blimunda, it is a story of self-discovery set in Portugal during the last years of Antonio Salazar's dictatorship. It tells the story of a struggling...
9) Seeing
A strange protest triggers a descent into paranoia and chaos in this “illuminating parable”—a sequel to the Nobel Prize-winning author’s Blindness (Ursula K. Le Guin, The Guardian, UK).
On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to come out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o’clock,
...In 1979, José Saramago decided to write a book called Journey to Portugal—and dedicated himself to obtaining the fullest meaning of his title. More than merely journeying in or through his native...
A dreamer petitions his king for a boat—and gets more than he bargained for—in “this richly enigmatic short story” by the Nobel Prize-winning author (Kirkus).
“A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. But the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered
...12) La caverna
2022: AÑO SARAMAGO
Una impresionante parábola sobre el mundo actual y sobre el verdadero significado del cambio.
«Qué extraña escena describes y qué extraños prisioneros. Son iguales a nosotros».
Platón, República, Libro VII
Una pequeña alfarería, un centro comercial gigantesco. Un mundo en rápido proceso de extinción, otro que crece y se multiplica como un juego de espejosdonde no parece
...For José Saramago, the life of Jesus Christ and the story of his Passion were things of this earth: a child crying, a gust of wind, the caress of a woman half asleep, the bleat of a goat or the bark of a...