First published in Portugal in 1984 and translated into English eight years later, this is one of the truly great 20th century novels. Jose Saramago was awarded last year's Nobel Prize for Literature and this book alone justifies the honour. The eponymous anti-hero is a doctor, of exactly what no-one is sure, who returns to his native Portugal in 1936 after 16 years in Brazil. Apathy is his medium, but he is interested in poetry, both his own and the superior verse of others. On arrival, he heads for a half remembered hotel and secures a room with a view of the river. Settling into a mindless routine, he emerges as a man who exists without experiencing. Confronting the tension and relationship existing between poetry and death, the narrative - with its echoes of Goncharaov's Oblomov - almost immediately establishes itself as a profound and graceful masterwork. Reis's slow disintegration is paralleled by that of Europe battered by Fascism. As literary as it is openly practical, the book is both personal story and history, both modern and traditional. Once read, never forgotten.
