The Tale of the Unknown Island

By: José Saramago, Peter Sis (Illustrator)

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Paperback | 1 August 2002 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
48 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
13.4 x 20.8 x 0.6

Paperback

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A wonderful and witty book, part folk fable, part philosophical tale, by the winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature and the greatest Portuguese writer of his time.

"A man went to knock at the king's door and said, Give me a boat. The king's house had many other doors, but this was the door for petitions. Since the king spent all his time sitting by the door for favours (favours being offered to the king, you understand), whenever he heard someone knocking on the door for petitions, he would pretend not to hear..."

Why the petitioner required a boat, where he was bound for, and who volunteered to crew for him and what cargo it was found to be carrying the reader will discover as this short narrative unfolds. And at the end it will be clear that what night appear to be a children's fable is in fact a wry, witty Philosophical Tale that would not have displeased Voltaire or Swift.

Industry Reviews

"Saramago writes possibly the most beautiful but certainly the most precise and differentiated Portuguese prose of our time" -- Walter Haubrich * Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung * "Saramago is a writer, like Faulkner, so confident of his resources and ultimate destination that he can bring any improbability to life" -- John Updike "No candidate for a Nobel Prize has a better claim to lasting recognition than this novelist" -- Edmund White "He was the equal of Philip Roth, Gunter Grass, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo. His genius was remarkably versatile - he was at once a great comic and a writer of shocking earnestness and grim poignancy" -- Harold Bloom "Saramago is a writer of formidable talent and extraordinary imagination" * La Repubblica *

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