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Translator’s Acknowledgements

I would like to thank José Saramago, Tânia Ganho, Ben Sherriff and Maartje de Kort for all their help and advice.

About the Author and the Translator

José Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922 and became a full-time writer in 1979. His oeuvre embraces plays, poetry, short stories, non-fiction and over a dozen novels, which have been translated into forty languages and have established him as one of Portugal’s most influential writers. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. José Saramago died on 18 June 2010.

Margaret Jull Costa has translated works by Eça de Queiroz, Fernando Pessoa, and José Régio, as well as a number of leading Spanish writers. Her translation of José Saramago’s All the Names won the Weidenfeld Translation Prize.

ALSO BY JOSÉ SARAMAGO IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION

Fiction

The Manual of Painting and Calligraphy

Baltasar and Blimunda

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

The History of the Siege of Lisbon

Blindness

All the Names

The Tale of the Unknown Island

The Stone Raft

The Cave

The Double

Non-Fiction

Journey to Portugal

Copyright

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781448114962

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Vintage 2008

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Copyright © José Saramago and Editorial Caminho S.A., Lisbon 2005

English translation copyright © Margaret Jull Costa 2008

José Saramago has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Harvill Secker

Vintage

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London, SW1V 2SA

www.vintage-books.co.uk

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099502487

Funded by the Portuguese Institute for Books and Libraries