| Title:
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THE HISTORY OF THE SIEGE OF LISBON
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| By: |
Jose Saramago, Giovanni Pontiero (Trans) |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| List price:
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£8.99 |
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further information.
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| ISBN 10: |
1860461328 |
| ISBN 13: |
9781860461323 |
| Publisher: |
VINTAGE PUBLISHING |
| Pub. date: |
3 May, 1996 |
| Pages: |
320 |
| Translated from: |
Portuguese |
| Description: |
Maybe through boredom, maybe through a spirit of contradiction, a publisher's proof reader alters a key word in a text, and thus changes a good deal more than he bargained for, in Portuguese history - the subject of the book - and his own life. |
| Synopsis: |
Raimundo Silva, a proofreader at a Portuguese publishing house, takes it upon himself to alter a key word in a text to make it read that in 1147 the king of Portugal reconquered Lisbon from the Saracens without any assistance from the Crusaders. His revision of a signal episode in Portuguese history unexpectedly and inexplicably wins the heart of his supervisor, Maria Sara, a woman of unwavering conviction. Rather than fire him as she ought to, Maria encourages Raimundo to rewrite the history of the siege of Lisbon in the grand style of a historical romance. Around this seemingly minor episode Jose Saramago constructs a broad, multifaceted tableau involving meditations on historiography and the uses and abuses of language, a parable of life under authoritarian rule, and a bittersweet romance. |
| Publication: |
UK |
| Imprint: |
The Harvill Press |
| Returns: |
Non-returnable |