I love the work of Nobel laureate José Saramago and have already read a few of his books, not this one, though - his very first novel published posthumously because the editor to whom the author sent it didn't even bother to answer until decades later when Saramago won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Find out more in the great review that went online here on the Read the Nobels blog past week!

Despite its title The History of the Siege of Lisbon doesn’t revolve around the proven historical facts of 1147, but they serve José Saramago only as background for a love story taking place eight centuries later.

Correcting the proofs of a history book Raimundo Benvindo Silva intentionally adds a minor mistake that reverses the meaning of a central sentence. When it is discovered the publishing house engages Dona Maria Sara to supervise all proofreaders. The encounter of the bachelor Raimundo Silva and the divorcee Maria Sara is the beginning of their hesitant love story. Encouraged by Maria Sara the proofreader sets out to write his own, alternative history of the siege of Lisbon. At the same time he courts Maria Sara, at first with much restraint because he can’t imagine the younger woman to be interested in him, but day by day they get closer.

For the full review please click here to go to my main book blog Edith’s Miscellany.

The History of the Siege of Lisbon - José Saramago,Giovanni Pontiero 
 

There are authors who are tremendously famous in their own countries and yet virtually unknown abroad. One of them is the incredibly prolific Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco, first Visconde de Correia Botelho whom I portrayed on my literature blog Edith's Miscellany this week.

His time was the nineteenth century and Romance novels made his fame. Up to this day his work is held in esteem by the Portuguese and some of his novels are even read in school. Two of his principal works - Amor de Perdição (1862; Doomed Love) and Mistérios de Lisboa (1854; Mysteries of Lisbon) - have been adapted for the screen in 2009 and 2010. And yet, only very few of his over 260 books have been translated into English.

Click here to read my portrait of this remarkable Portuguese writer!