Manual of Painting and Calligraphy

A delightful insight into the formation of an artist who would become one of the world's most respected writers.Born in 1922 in the tiny Portuguese village of Azinhaga, Jose Saramago was only a baby when his family moved to a series of cramped lodgings in a working-class neighbourhood of Lisbon. Nevertheless, he would return to the village throughout his early life, its river and olive groves seeping deep into his memory.Shifting between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this touching book is a mosaic of...

Jose Saramago takes us on a thrilling literary journey through the land, history and culture of his native country. From the misty mountains of the north to the southern seascape of the Algarve, the travels of Nobel Laureate Jose Saramago are a passionate rediscovery of his own land. Embarking in the autumn of 1979, Saramago resolves to travel to Portugal, as well as through it. As his country emerges from an authoritarian dictatorship, he traverses his beloved homeland, neglecting its grand...

Quien es este Dios, primero hebraico y ahora cristiano, que quiere la sangre, la muerte, para que sea restablecido el equilibrio de un mundo en el que solo imperan sus leyes? Como puede la nueva ley ser ley de Amor si aun pesa sobre el ser humano la condenacion eterna? Como puede este creerse una criatura divina digna de la inmortalidad si debe someterse a una ley de terror que preexiste y es exterior a el? Esta novela, que tanto sorprendio al mundo catolico, presenta una vision distinta,...

This deeply personal work, follows the changing fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family – poor, landless peasants not unlike the author’s own grandparents. Saramago charts the lives of the family in Alentjo, southern Portugal, as national and international events rumble on in the background – the coming of the republic in Portugal, the First and Second World Wars, and an attempt on the dictator Salazar's life. Yet, nothing seriously impinges on the farm labourers' lives until the first...

Una novela y un autor que nos alertan sobre «la responsabilidad de tener ojos cuando otros los perdieron». «Dentro de nosotros hay algo que no tiene nombre, esa cosa es lo que somos». Un hombre parado ante un semaforo en rojo se queda ciego subitamente. Es el primer caso de una «ceguera blanca» que se expande de manera fulminante. Internados en cuarentena o perdidos en la ciudad, los ciegos tendran que enfrentarse con lo mas primitivo en la naturaleza humana: la voluntad de sobrevivir a...

Cipriano Algor, an ageing potter, lives with his daughter and her husband in the shadow of the Centre, a nebulous, constantly expanding conglomerate that provides his livelihood - until it decrees that it is no longer interested in his humble wares. Together with his daughter, they craft a new line of small ceramic figurines and, to their bafflement, the Centre orders vast quantities. But once the figures are complete, the Centre recants: there is no market for them. Resigned to idleness...