Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question -- what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death? On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This of course causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration - flags are hung out on balconies, people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home - families are left to care for the permanently dying, life-insurance policies become meaningless, and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.
Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets, and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small "d" became human and were to fall in love?
José de Sousa Saramago(1922-2010) is a Nobel-laureate Portuguese writer, playwright and journalist. His works commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor rather than the official story. Some of his works can also be seen as allegories – among them are the novels “Blindness” and “The Elephant’s Journey”, which are published in Bulgaria. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. More than two million copies of his books have been sold in Portugal and his work has been translated into 25 languages. He was a founding member of the National Front for the Defence of Culture in Lisbon in 1992. A proponent of libertarian communism, Saramago came into conflict with groups such as the Catholic Church. In 1992, the Portuguese government ordered the removal of “The Gospel According to Jesus Christ” from the European Literary Prize's shortlist, claiming the work was religiously offensive. Disheartened by this political censorship of his novel, Saramago went into exile on a Spanish island where he resided until his death in 2010.
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