The Stone Raft

New
Paperback
2000
$11.70

What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating the Iberian peninsula? In Saramago's lovely fable, the new island is sent spinning, like a great stone raft, towards the Azores. While the authorities panic and tourists and investors flee, three men, two women and a dog are drawn together by portents that burden them with a bemusing sense of responsibility. Travelling at first packed into a car, then into a wagon, they take to the road to explore the limits of their now finite land, adrift in a world made new by this radical shift in perspective.

Synopsis

What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating the Iberian peninsula? In Saramago's lovely fable, the new island is sent spinning, like a great stone raft, towards the Azores. While the authorities panic and tourists and investors flee, three men, two women and a dog are drawn together by portents that burden them with a bemusing sense of responsibility. Travelling at first packed into a car, then into a wagon, they take to the road to explore the limits of their now finite land, adrift in a world made new by this radical shift in perspective.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Edition: Revised ed.
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Published: 01 Jun 2000
ISBN 10: 1860467210
ISBN 13: 9781860467219
Book Overview: A majestic tale, rich in allegory, wit and philosophy; another masterpiece from the Nobel prize-winning novelist Jose Saramago.

Media Reviews

An irresistible blend of shrewd detail and lyrical fantasy... A seductive novel that needs to be savoured -- Helen Dunmore * Observer *
An invitation to one of the richest bodies of work by a living writer -- Amanda Hopkinson * New Statesman *
Jose Saramago's brilliant evocation...is magical realism of a sort that stirs real wonder -- James Park * Time Out *
Saramago's lovely and original questing story, in a lineage of others such as Don Quixote and Kipling's Kim, is a journey of the spirit told as a journey of the feet -- Richard Eder * Los Angeles Times *
Tremendous wit is always apparent in his imaginative conceits, comic digression and verbal and narrative games -- Ian Critchley * Sunday Times *

Author Bio

Jose Saramago is one of the most important international writers of the last hundred years. Born in Portugal in 1922, he was in his sixties when he came to prominence as a writer with the publication of Baltasar and Blimunda. A huge body of work followed, translated into more than forty languages, and in 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Saramago died in June 2010.