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 explore the horror and repression that paralyzed Portugal under the Salazar regime and pay tribute to human resilience in the face of injustice and institutionalized tyranny. Beautifully written and deeply unsettling, The Lives of Things illuminates the development of Saramago's prose and records the genesis of themes that resound throughout his novels.
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 explore the horror and repression that paralyzed Portugal under the Salazar regime and pay tribute to human resilience in the face of injustice and institutionalized tyranny. Beautifully written and deeply unsettling, The Lives of Things illuminates the development of Saramago's prose and records the genesis of themes that resound throughout his novels.
A surreal short story collection from the master of what-ifs
The Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago was a novelist,
playwright and journalist. His numerous books, including the
bestselling All the Names, Blindness, and The Cave, have been
translated into more than forty languages and have established him
as one of the world's most influential writers. He died in June
2010.
Umberto Eco is a professor of semiotics at the University of
Bologna and the author of Foucault's Pendulum, The Name of the
Rose, and other international bestsellers. He lives in Milan,
Italy.
Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor, researcher, and translator. His
translations include Creole (2002), The Book of Chameleons (2006),
My Father's Wives (2008), and Rainy Season (2009), by Angolan
novelist Jose? Eduardo Agualusa.
The most gifted novelist ... in the world today.
*Harold Bloom*
Saramago is a writer, like Faulkner, so confident of his resources
and ultimate destination that he can bring any improbability to
life.
*New Yorker*
No one writes quite like Saramago, so solicitous and yet so
magnificently free. He works as though cradling a thing of
magic.
*Guardian*
These early stories are a reminder of why he deserved the Nobel
prize.
*Scotland on Sunday*
Bittersweet beauty but also a wickedly mischievous sense of humour
... parables in human compassion, celebrating the triumph of the
human spirit.
*Irish Times*
A poetic encapsulation of Saramago's extraordinary talent.
*Bookforum*
An intriguing coda to a fascinating career.
*Metro*
One of the giants of European literature ... For new readers, this
collection is an essential introduction to Saramago's concerns with
social decay, alienation and political repression and the
alternatives to them. For devotees, it is one to savour.
*Morning Star*
Here, the literary lion experiments with shorter, more inventive
forms, and the results are lucid and impressive...Saramago's
considerable talent is clearly manifest.
*Publishers Weekly*
The Lives of Things is a wonderful artifact ... it is, like all his
books, intoxicating reading...Moribund, absurd, flickering quickly
between mirth and horror, these stories are filled with the master
scribe's sibylline ruminations on mortality and language, and a
gentle, blossoming beauty.
*Fast Forward Weekly*
Saramago's prose is richly colorful, descriptive and frequently
verges on shocking without being excessive. It is easy to fall into
the trap of reading the same paragraph over and over again,
luxuriating in the gorgeous, strange yet precise word choice but
without being stuck.
*Three Percent*
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