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The Stone Raft
  • Published: 1 August 2002
  • ISBN: 9781860467219
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $24.99

The Stone Raft

Formats & editions
EBook
20 Sept 2013
Paperback
1 Aug 2002
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A majestic tale, rich in allegory, wit and philosophy; another masterpiece from the Nobel prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago.

What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating Spain and Portugal from the rest of Europe?

In Saramago's fable, a new island is sent spinning through the ocean like a great stone raft. While the authorities panic and tourists flee, three men, two women and a dog are drawn together by omens that burden them with a peculiar responsibility. In this magical realist tale, the six take to the road, finding themselves adrift in a world now unfamiliar and forced to reckon with their relationships, human psychology and the shakiness of belief itself.
  • Published: 1 August 2002
  • ISBN: 9781860467219
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 288
  • RRP: $24.99
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About the author

José Saramago

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).
portrait photo of José Saramago

Also by José Saramago

The First Boat
An Unexpected Light
The Silence of Water
The Lizard
Manual of Painting and Calligraphy
Skylight
Raised from the Ground
See all

Praise for The Stone Raft

An irresistible blend of shrewd detail and lyrical fantasy... A seductive novel that needs to be savoured

Helen Dunmore, Observer

An invitation to one of the richest bodies of work by a living writer

Amanda Hopkinson, New Statesman

Jose Saramago's brilliant evocation...is magical realism of a sort that stirs real wonder

James Park, Time Out

Saramago's lovely and original questing story, in a lineage of others such as Don Quixote and Kipling's Kim, is a journey of the spirit told as a journey of the feet

Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times

Tremendous wit is always apparent in his imaginative conceits, comic digression and verbal and narrative games

Ian Critchley, Sunday Times

An engaging fantasy...this book can't be pinned down however, either as magic realism, Swiftian satire, or dystopian science fiction: in fact its concerns are largely philosophical... Pontiero's excellent translation preserves the strange, looping rhythms of Jose Saramago's prose, as well as his likeably self-referential humour and, most important of all, the sense of a deep and luminous intelligence which informs the whole enterprise

Jonathan Coe, Mail on Sunday