“Saramago is one of Europe’s most original and remarkable writers . . . his writing is imbued with the spirit of comic enquiry, meditative pessimism and a quietly transforming energy that turns the indefinite into the unforgettable”

RICHARD EDER, Los Angeles Times

“This cryptic, ingenious novel . . . is never dull or humourless . . . No candidate for [the Nobel Prize] has a better claim to lasting recognition than this novelist who was born in 1922 but was in his mid-50s before he started to publish the fiction that has won him an international reputation”

EDMUND WHITE, New York Times

“Sensuous, teasing and mesmeric”

CATHY PEAKE, Sydney Morning Herald

“A book filled with lyrical and intellectual rewards”

BILL MARX, Boston Globe

“This hypnotic tale is a great comic romp through history, language and the imagination”

Publishers Weekly

“Saramago is an extraordinarily talented artist, the type of playwright, novelist, essayist and occasional poet irresistible to lovers of literature”

ILAN STAVANS, Nation