Jos? 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 world, but a fount of knowledge, affection, and authority to young Jos?.Shifting back and forth between childhood and his teenage years, between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this is a mosaic of memories, a simply told, affecting look back into the author's boyhood: the tragic death of his older brother ...
A man went to knock at the king's door and said to him, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting by the door for favors (favors being done to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking on the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear . . ." Why the petitioner required a boat, where he was bound for, and who volunteered to crew for him the reader will discover as this short narrative unfolds. And at the end it will be clear that if we thought we were reading a children's fable we were wrong-we have been reading a love story and a philosophical tale worthy of Voltaire or Swift.
Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta and her husband Mar?al in a small village on the outskirts of The Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartments, and offices to which Cipriano delivers his pots and jugs every month. On one such trip, he is told not to make any more deliveries. Unwilling to give up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls. Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds, and Cipriano and Marta set to work-until the order is cancelled and the three have to move from the village into The Center. When mysterious sounds of digging emerge from beneath their apartment, Cipriano and Mar?al investigate, and what they find transforms the family's life. Filled with the depth, humor, and the extraordinary philosophical richness that marks each of Saramago's novels, The Cave is one of the essential books of our time.
In 1551, King Jo?o III of Portugal gave Archduke Maximilian an unusual wedding present: an elephant named Solomon. The elephant’s journey from Lisbon to Vienna was witnessed and remarked upon by scholars, historians, and ordinary people. Out of this material, Jos? Saramago has spun a novel already heralded as “a triumph of language, imagination, and humor” ().Solomon and his keeper, Subhro, begin in dismal conditions, forgotten in a corner of the palace grounds. When it occurs to the king and queen that an elephant would be an appropriate wedding gift, everyone rushes to get them ready: Subhro ...
This is a skeptic’s journey into the meaning of God and of human existence. At once an ironic rendering of the life of Christ and a beautiful novel, Saramago’s tale has sparked intense discussion about the meaning of Christianity and the Church as an institution. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.
In this “ingenious” novel (New York Times) by “one of Europe’s most original and remarkable writers” (Los Angeles Times), a proofreader’s deliberate slip opens the door to romance-and confounds the facts of Portugal’s past.
When the Iberian Peninsula breaks free of Europe and begins to drift across the North Atlantic, five people are drawn together on the newly formed island-first by surreal events and then by love. “A splendidly imagined epic voyage...a fabulous fable” (Kirkus Reviews). Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.Jos? Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922. He is the author of six novels, including Baltasar and Blimunda and The History of the Siege of Lisbon, Blindness, and All The Names. His backlist is available in Harvest editions.
“Todos los nombres” es la historia de amor m?s intensa de la literatura portuguesa de todos los tiempos.” Eduardo Loureno“Todos los nombres” es el relato de aventuras de un Jos? “sin nombre”, aunque el suyo sea el ?nico que figure en la historia.En su aparente humildad, en su aut?ntica soledad, en su falta de bienes materiales y afectivos y, sobre todo, en su inalienable dignidad humana, este don Jos? es pariente pr?ximo de otros personajes literarios: Bouvard y P?cuchet, los copistas enciclop?dicos de Flaubert; el obstinado Bartleby de Melville; el ...
Bohater- pan Jose, urz?dnik Archiwum G??wnego Akt Stanu Cywilnego- za wszelk? cen? stara si? odnale?? pewn? kobiet?. Cho? nie ma ?adnego konkretnego powodu, by jej szuka?, co? pcha go do dzia?ania. Aby osi?gn?? sw?j cel, ten uczciwy, z pozoru bezbarwny cz?owiek ucieka si? do oszustwa, a nawet przest?pstwa. Co ka?e mu to czyni?? Odbywaj?c z bohaterem absurdaln? w?dr?wk? po korytarzach Archiwum, czytelnik niepostrze?enie zag??bia si? w labirynt w?asnego umys?u, by odnale?? w nim to, czego wcale si? nie spodziewa.
The year: 1936. Europe dances while an invidious dictator establishes himself in Portugal. The city: Lisbon-gray, colorless, chimerical. Ricardo Reis, a doctor and poet, has just come home after sixteen years in Brazil. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.
