ABSTRACT:
In Dialogue with Saramago: Essays in comparative literature is a collection of new studies of Saramago's work, written by some of the world's leading specialists in contemporary Portuguese literature. As one of the first English-language volumes to be published on this internationally acclaimed author, it is aimed both at literary scholars and at fans of Saramago's novels, and uses a comparative approach to build up an overview of his 40-year long writing career. Comparisons of Saramago's works with those of Günter Grass, Gabriel García Márquez and Gore Vidal offer an assessment in the context of the contemporary international literary scene. Meanwhile, Saramago's contribution to literary traditions within Portugal is traced by readings relating his work to that of Camões, Pessoa and Camilo Castelo Branco. Other essays illuminate relationships with some of the best-established figures in literary history, from Dante, Cervantes and Dostoevsky to Borges, Orwell and Camus, in order to complete a picture of Saramago's work within contemporary delineations of the canon of western literature. The volume also contains a critical introduction that focuses on Saramago's assessment of the political implications of quoting and rewriting, and that briefly reviews a number of existing comparative studies of Saramago's work in both English and Portuguese.
List of contributors
Helena Carvalhão Buescu
David Frier
Orland Grossegesse
Adriana Alves de Paula Martins
Paulo de Medeiros
José Ornelas
Christopher Rollason
Mark Sabine
Maria Irene Ramalho Santos
Ellen W. Sapega
Full table of contents
Mark Sabine & Adriana Alves de Paula Martins,
Introduction: Saramago and the politics of quotation 1
Ellen W. Sapega, Saramago's 'genius': Camões, Adamastor,
and Ricardo Reis 25
David Frier, Of false dons and missed opportunities, or how
Calisto Elói and Ricardo Reis failed Portugal 37
Orlando Grossegesse, About words, tears, and screams:
Dante's Commedia revisited by Borges and Saramago 57
Helena Carvalhão Buescu, The encounter as failure to meet:
Saramago's Todos os Nomes and Dostoevsky's White Nights 81
M. Irene Ramalho Santos, All the names: José Saramago and
lyric poetry 91
Christopher Rollason, How totalitarianism begins at home:
Saramago and George Orwell 105
José N. Ornelas, Convergences and divergences in Saramago's
Ensaio sobre a Cegueira and Camus's The Plague 121
Mark Sabine, Levantado do Chão after One Hundred Years of Solitude: the telling of time and truth in Saramago and García Márquez 141
Adriana Alves de Paula Martins, The poetics of correction in
Gore Vidal's Burr and Saramago's História do Cerco de Lisboa 163
