Description

A subtle and insightful story about boredom, passion, curiosity and memory from the Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago

Senhor Jose is a lonely civil servant who spends his days labouring in the labyrinthine stacks of Lisbon’s central registry. Among the file-cards for the living and the dead, one – of an apparently ordinary woman – will transform his life. Breaking away from his strict routine, Jose resolves to track the woman down, obsessively following a thread of clues in a bid to rescue her from an oblivion deeper than the grave.

‘When a very good book finds us at just the right moment in life, it can become stitched into our own identity. All the Names – a novel about identity and connection – has become stitched into mine’ Samantha Harvey, Independent

Publisher Review

"A tantalizing novel...shifting and teasing, full of metaphorical labyrinths and false trails" Herald "Offers an unearthly, muted beauty; a freedom from the obvious, the ideological and trivial; an atmosphere of profound serenity, and a benevolent humor" Literary Review "It is the marriage of the living and the dying...that so strongly characterizes the writing of Jose Saramago" New Statesman "The Swedish Academy's citation called his novels "parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony." It is a description which perfectly captures his latest novel" The Times "Both delightful and unsettling which is perhaps the mark of true literature" -- Anthony Daniels Sunday Telegraph