The very first novel written by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saramago
H. is a struggling artist with a commission to paint a portrait of a well-known industrialist. Whilst the industrialist sits for the portrait, H. begins an affair with his subject’s secretary. Meanwhile the painting starts to fail. For inspiration H. takes a trip to Italy to contemplate the works of the great artists, but when his friend back home is arrested by the secret police of Salazar’s regime, H. is pulled back to Portugal. Art, sexuality and politics collide in Saramago’s first novel.
JOSÉ DE SOUSA SARAMAGO, (November 1922 - June 2010), was a Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the theopoetic human factor. More than two million copies of Saramago's books have been sold in Portugal alone and his work has been translated into 25 languages. He was a founding member of the National Front for the Defense of Culture in Lisbon in 1992, and co-founder with Orhan Pamuk, of the European Writers' Parliament (EWP).