The Collected Novels of José Saramago

Baltasar & Blimunda (1987)

A heretical priest during the time of the Spanish Inquisition is building a flying machine, with three people to help him: Domenico Scarlatti and a pair of lovers, Baltasar, a one-handed soldier, and Blimunda, the slender daughter of a witch.

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1991)

The year is 1936, the city, Lisbon. Ricardo Reis, a middle-aged doctor and poet, has returned to his native country after sixteen years in Brazil. He spends hours walking the steep rain-filled streets.

The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1994)

A deft psychological portrait of a savior who is at once the Son of God and a young man of this earth.

The Stone Raft (1995)

One day the Iberian Peninsula breaks off from the rest of the continent and drifts away into the Atlantic Ocean.

The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1997)

A proofreader alters a key word in an account of the 1147 siege of Lisbon—then under Moorish rule—by crusaders. This uncharacteristic decision will lead him into an affair of the heart that changes the course of European history.

Blindness (1998)

A city is struck by an epidemic of “white blindness.” Only a doctors wife is spared, and she must guide seven strangers through the dangerous new circumstances.

The Tale of the Unknown Island (1999)

This is the story of a man who asks the king for a boat and of the woman who decides to follow him on his adventure.

All the Names (2000)

Senhor José, a low-level clerk in the Central Registry, chances upon the records of a young woman and becomes obsessed with the idea of finding her.

The Cave (2002)

An elderly potter struggles to make a living. His son-in-law, a security guard at the Center, is assigned to guard an excavation-in-progress that will change the family’s life forever.

The Double (2004)

Tertuliano Máximo Afonso, a high school history teacher, rents a video and is surprised to discover an extra in the film looks exactly like him. It is, in fact, his double.

Seeing (2006)

On election day in the capital, all the citizens rush out to vote, but they leave their ballots mysteriously blank.

Death with Interruptions (2008)

Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with her scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: what if people stopped dying?

The Elephant’s Journey (2010)

Based on a true story, the tale of an elephant who walked from Lisbon to Vienna in 1551.