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Seeing
José Saramago Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa
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9780151012381 Hardcover
0151012385
$25.00
320pages
Available
Trim Size:
6 x 9
Copyright Year:
2006
Territory:
US, C, O (-EU)
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Read an Excerpt
Reading Guide
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Synopsis |
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On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to come out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. What's going on? Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o'clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.
But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. The president proposes that a wall be built around the city to contain the revolution. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that had hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? Is she the organizer of a conspiracy against the state? A police superintendent is put on the case.
What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness.
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Praise |
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"Saramago's unsettling allegory of power and politics . . . stays with you long after the last page is turned."
Scott Stephens,Cleveland Plain Dealer,4/16/2006
"[A]nother invaluable gift from a matchless writer"
Kirkus Reviews,2/1/2006
"Saramago’s clear eye for acknowledging things as they are barrages us with valuable insights suggesting that the dynamics of human governance are not as rational as we like to think"
Library Journal,4/1/2006
"Saramago has a taste for alternative realities, for the use of fiction as a form of speculation."
Michael Wood,Slate,4/10/2006
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Biography |
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Jose Saramago is one of the most acclaimed writers in the world today. The author of numerous novels, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
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Awards |
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| Nobel Prize in Literature • Author Award |
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General Subjects |
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Fiction- Literary
Fiction- General
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Academic Disciplines & Course Studies |
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English Language & Literature- World Literature
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Rights Details |
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| Rights Holders: |
Serial: Harcourt
Audio/Performance/Translation: Dr. Ray-Gude Mertin
UK: Harvill Secker (Random House UK Ltd.)
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Rights Information |
Harcourt Books
An imprint ofHarcourt Trade Publishers
A
Harcourt Education Company
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