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Jose Saramago was one of the most important international writers of the last hundred years. Born in Portugal in 1922 in the small rural village of Azinhaga, he was in his fifties when he came to prominence as a writer with the publication of Baltasar and Blimunda. A huge body of work followed, which included plays, poetry, short stories, non-fiction and over a dozen novels, translated into more than forty languages, and in 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in June 2010.
It is extremely funny. Old Saramago writes with a masterfully light hand, and the humour is tender, a mockery so tempered by patience and pity that the sting is gone though the wit remains vital... a series of contained miracles of absurdity, quiet laughter rising out of a profound, resigned, affectionate wisdom -- Ursula K Le Guin * Guardian * José Saramango wrote his final book with great panache -- Margaret Reynolds * The Times * Here is a book as serious as it is charming; amid its ironies runs a sustained pleas for the subversive workings of the imagination: ""every elephant contains two elephants, one who learns what he's being taught and another who insists on ignoring it all"". Thank goodness for that' * Guardian * A novel of wit, warmth and wonder -- Yann Martel Here he has seized the opportunity to turn an unlikely tale of a transalpine hike into something far larger even than its elephantine subject. -- Amanda Hopkinson * Independent * The novel has a charming fairy tale quality, with its kings and courtiers, it pachyderm protagonist and his mysterious mahout: this is amoung the most charming of Saramago's works -- Michael Kerrigan * Times Literary Supplement * A playful, intellectual, very European novel, at times if feels reminiscent of Kafka in his lighter moments * Independent on Sunday * In laconic prose, Saramago skilfully builds a journey of delicious digressions that set up resonances from Miguel de Cervantes' picaresque chivalries to Czech humorist Jaroslav Hasek's pigeon - fancying soldier Schweik - all delivered with a jocular pedantry that satirises pomp and grand designs' * Financial Times * It's an epic ramble that the Nobel Prize-winning author saw as a metaphor for life * Timeout * Saramago enjoys filling out the details with improvisatory skill and imagination -- John Spurling * Sunday Times *
