It is set in the Alentejo, the rural area of Portugal where Saramago's family came from, and follows the fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family from the beginning of the twentieth century through to its middle. Joao Mau-Tempo suffers the suicide of his father, a drunken cobbler, followed by hardship as hi[...]

The Lives of Things collects Jose Saramago's early experiments with the short story form, attesting to the young novelist's imaginative power and incomparable skill in elaborating the most extravagant fantasies. Combining bitter satire, outrageous parody and Kafkaesque hallucinations, these stories [...]

Cipriano Algor, an ageing potter, lives with his daughter in the shadow of the Centre, a nebulous megaplex that provides his livelihood - until it haughtily decrees it is no longer interested in his humble wares. Then late one night he comes across a horrifying secret.[...]

Despite the heavy rain, the presiding officer at Polling Station 14 finds it odd that by midday on National Election day, only a handful of voters have turned out. Puzzlement swiftly escalates to shock when eventually, after an extension, the final count reveals seventy per cent of the votes are bla[...]

After killing his brother Abel, Cain must wander for ever. He witnesses Noah's ark, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf. He is there in time to save Abraham from sacrificing Isaac when God's angel arrives late after a wing malfunction. Written in the last years of Sarama[...]

For the first time in English: legendary Brazilian author Jorge Amado's spirited novella about Arab immigrants to South America--published for the centennial of Amado's birthTwo Arab immigrants--"Turks" as Brazilians call them--arrive in the rough Brazilian frontier on the same ship in 1903, hoping [...]

Raimundo Silva, a proofreader at a Portuguese publishing house, takes it upon himself to alter a key word in a text to make it read that in 1147 the king of Portugal reconquered Lisbon from the Saracens without any assistance from the Crusaders. His revision of a signal episode in Portuguese history[...]

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" which spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers-among [...]

"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. Since the king spent all his time sitting at the door for favors (favors being offered to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking at the[...]

Four years after a bizarre blindness plague hits the capital, the political arena is thrown into turmoil when election day is marked by an unprecedented turnout of blank ballots and rebellious acts that prompt a state of emergency declaration. By the Nobel Prize for Literature-winning author of Blin[...]

A previously unpublished novel by a literary master, "Skylight" tells the intertwined stories of the residents of a faded apartment building in 1940s Lisbon. Silvestre and Mariana, a happily married elderly couple, take in a young nomad, Abel, and soon discover their many differences. Adriana loves [...]

Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question -- what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death? On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among [...]