Description
Book SynopsisA subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner José Saramago
Senhor José is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon's central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one – of an apparently ordinary woman – will transform his life. Breaking away from his strict routine, José resolves to track the woman down, obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from an oblivion deeper than the grave.
'When a very good book finds us at just the right moment in life, it can become stitched into our own identity. All the Names – a novel about identity and connection – has become stitched into mine' Samantha Harvey, Independent
Trade ReviewA novel that has soul, which Saramago offers to his readers with all his witty, intelligent, tender and magical generosity -- Samantha Harvey * Independent *
Offers an unearthly, muted beauty; a freedom from the obvious, the ideological and trivial; an atmosphere of profound serenity, and a benevolent humor * Literary Review *
Both delightful and unsettling which is perhaps the mark of true literature -- Anthony Daniels * Sunday Telegraph *
A tantalizing novel...shifting and teasing, full of metaphorical labyrinths and false trails * Herald *
It is the marriage of the living and the dying...that so strongly characterizes the writing of Jose Saramago * New Statesman *
