Description

Watching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. He embarks on a secret quest to find his double and sets in motion a train of events that he cannot control. Saramago’s novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat, when even a wife cannot tell the original from the imposter…

Publisher Review

Quite unlike anything else * London Review of Books * A Borgesian fable with a marvellous flavour all its own -- Phillip Hensher, Books of the Year * Spectator * A comic and profound exploration of the self... A uniquely seductive writer * Daily Telegraph * The Double is Saramago at his most practised and polished. It is philosophy and thriller rolled into one * Independent * Indebted to Borges and with a nod to Auster, he manages to surpass both with the audacity and sheer erudition of his prose -- Catherine Taylor * The Guardian * In the pacy denouement the consequences of the hero's actions are played out with surprising deftness... [An] extraordinarily bold and peculiar romance * The Times * Written with gusto, wit an imaginative energy...an urgent and topical masterpiece * Literary Review * Thought-provoking, scrupulously constructed and narrated with buoyant high spirits * Times Literary Supplement * Cleverly written and left me with lots to think about...a very good book * http://www.farmlanebooks.co.uk/ *