《修道院纪事》这部历史题材的长篇小说以独创的风格和扣人心弦的故事情节而令人目注神驰。小说描述了一位士兵和一位具有特异视力的姑娘之间奇特的爱情故事，把读者带到了18世纪初宗教裁判所窒息人性的时代。天地茫茫，但一对深爱的情侣却饱受磨难，无容身之地。小说真实与虚幻交相辉映，气势恢宏，荡气回肠，不愧为大家手笔。

小說開場為1711年，當時雖然已經邁向啟蒙時代，但還是在宗教裁判所掌控的環境當中。
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以興建瑪弗拉修道院的歷史故事為線索，以斷臂士兵巴達薩與通靈姑娘布莉穆妲的愛情故事引導，借助奇異的想像和寓意，揭露教會的陰暗、權力和壓迫，呼喚正義。
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國王（若望五世）求子心切，許願建修道院償願；同時間，羅倫索神父（帕德雷．巴赫托羅繆爾．羅倫索）則著手飛行器的製造工程。
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愛情穿插在舊制的專制與科學的啟蒙思想中震盪，虛實交錯，貴族與平民雙線鋪陳。最後巴達薩與布莉穆妲在宗教法庭的火形柱下魂魄結合。
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有好色的修士；熱情的遊行隊伍；倒楣的水手被當練習箭靶；身穿華服的女性，觀看行為失檢的改宗者與巫師被處火刑。
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也有在宗教裁判所與瘟疫的恐怖中，一對表面不相配的愛侶卻發現了愛的奇蹟。
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這個詩意的傳奇，講究歷史細節，充滿魔幻與冒險，是一幅人類愚蠢與意志的織錦。這本小說的成就耀眼，也是薩拉馬戈所有作品中最受喜愛的一部。
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諾貝爾文學獎得主薩拉馬戈傳世傑作
葡語文學最高獎項「卡蒙斯文學獎」得獎作品
魔幻時代中一則冒險與宗教的華麗傳奇
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台大外文系教授張淑英專文導讀

千萬不要卸下你這把思考的匕首 － 薩拉馬戈
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本書為薩拉馬戈個人部落格的文章集結，從二○○八年九月美國總統大選前夕開始，記錄作者生命當中整整一年的時光。在書頁中，薩拉馬戈召喚出他所深愛的城市－－里斯本的靈魂，作為部落格寫作計畫的開場，行文動人心弦而又情感豐富。他也重新回顧與朋友的對談，並且對他摯愛的作家們進行深度的思索。
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身為一名無神論者、共產黨員，薩拉馬戈以其激烈的革命靈魂對社會、政治、經濟以及文化等議題，提出敏銳的觀察、立體的思考與尖銳而不肯妥協的批判。這些思索化為他筆下繽紛的細節，遠看成嶺側成峰，同時又一起向讀者證明，作者對於我們身處時代的洞察與理解，並向世人提出對這個世界的深刻哲學反思，也彰顯了他認為人類生命最基本、最該堅持的普世價值。
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薩拉馬戈語錄：
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＊若你看得到，就仔細看；若你能仔細看，就好好觀察。
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＊千萬不要卸下你這把思考的匕首。
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＊美麗並不只限於我們所稱美學的範疇裡面，它同樣能夠在道德擔當裡面被找到。
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＊我們能夠挽救經濟，卻不去拯救人，而人是理應擺在最優先順位的，無論他或她是誰、身在何地。
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＊如果一個作家屬於他所身處的那個時代，倘若他沒有受到過去的鎖鏈綑綁，他就必須知道他生而為人的這個時代當中所發生的各種問題。那麼，當今之世的問題是什麼呢？……最根本、最要緊的是，當世界需要批判觀點的時候，文學就不應該遺世而孤立。
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＊我們應當自問：「黑暗到哪去啦？」這樣問並不奇怪。而這個問題只能有一個回答：「黑暗哪也沒去，它就是光亮的另一面，那神祕的另外一面。」

On the first day of the New Year, no one dies. This understandably causes great consternation amongst religious leaders - if there's no death, there can be no resurrection and therefore no reason for religion - and what will be the effect on pensions, the social services, hospitals? Funeral directors are reduced to arranging funerals for dogs, cats, hamsters and parrots. Life insurance policies become meaningless. Amid the general public, on the other hand, there is initially celebration: flags are hung out on balconies and people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity - eternal life.But will death's disappearance benefit the human race, or will this sudden abeyance backfire? How long can families cope with malingering elderly relatives who scratch at death's door while the portal remains firmly shut? Then, seven months later, death returns, heralded by purple envelopes informing the recipients that their time is up. Death herself is now writing personal notes giving one week's notice. However, when an envelope is unexpectedly returned to her, death begins to experience strange, almost human emotions. In his new novel, Jose Saramago again turns the world on its head - an everyday event is snatched away, and humankind is left to make of it what it will.

The year: 1936. Europe dances while Spain edges toward civil war and on invidious home-grown dictator establishes himself in Portugal. The city: Lisbon - gray, colorless, chimerical.
In the midst of this surreal setting is Ricardo Reis, a middle-aged doctor and poet who has returned to his native country after sixteen years in Brazil. Instead of receiving patients in an office, he spend hours walking steep, rain-filled streets. He has a love affairs with the hotel chambermaid who slips into his bed at night. He is haunted by a young woman woman with a mysterious paralyis of her left hand. And he is visited by the ghostly presence of a celebrated Portuguese poet, recently deceased. Can Ricardo Reis live in a world bent on destroying itself?

《里斯本圍城史》是在歷史中尋找歷史，重新詮釋另一面向的歷史書寫，充分展現了薩拉馬戈的文字書寫魔幻遊戲功力。書中敘述校稿人雷孟杜‧希爾法在校對一本歷史書時，質疑歷史的真偽。校對者在百般思索之後，將史實記載中的「是」改為「不」，在是╱不之間，改寫了里斯本圍城事件的歷史，這個被改寫的歷史結論道是：十二世紀時，十字軍不曾援助葡萄牙國王從摩爾人手中收復里斯本！
一字之差不但使一位校對者改寫了整部歷史，也改變了校對者枯竭的人生－－動人的瑪麗亞‧薩拉博士使得雷孟杜‧希爾法的中年之戀萌芽開花。在她的激發之下，校對者以一種生動的形式重寫里斯本圍城史‧‧‧‧‧‧而改寫之後的歷史，反而符合大部分挑剔的讀者對於歷史傳奇故事的要求‧‧‧‧‧‧
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葡萄牙的重量級作家撒拉馬戈在 1998 年榮獲諾貝爾文學講後，曾如此說道：「諾貝爾文學講讓我感到愉悅榮耀，但也因為是第一位葡語作家獲此桂冠感到責任兼具；然而，這個獎不是空前，亦非絕後，它代表班授給我之前每一位優秀的葡語作家前輩，以及我之後卓越的年輕健筆。」這樣深具史觀的文學使命也反映在薩拉馬戈的作品裡。 薩拉馬戈以小說聞名，也兼寫詩與劇作，他的作品展現豐富的文字遊戲風格，尤其擅長融合歷史與虛構，在敘事、人物、虛實、是非之間變換書寫方式的風格與技巧。正如薩拉馬戈 Saramago 這個姓氏拆解後的意思（Sera-mago）「真是一位魔術師？！」 《里斯本圍城史》對歷史詮釋作新面向探索，書中敘述校稿人在校對里斯本圍城史記載時，質疑歷史的真偽，認為葡萄牙國王必然是拿出交換條件，才能驅使歐洲十字軍援助葡國，從摩爾人手中收復裡斯本，於是他將史籍中的「是」改為「非」，是∕非之間改寫了里斯本突圍的歷史，一字之差變成十字軍從未參與歷史大事。從這段故事綱要，我們已經看出大師在文字遊戲中顯現出對權力書寫嘲弄及官僚價值的批判，也正如瑞典皇家學院對他的賀詞：「他的作品是充滿想向、憐憫與諷寓的預言，但字裡行間仍時時將那被掩飾或隱遁的真實彰顯而出。」

《盲目》一書是1998年諾貝爾文學獎得主薩拉馬戈在1995年發表的重要作品。以卡夫卡式筆調敘述人們突如其來淪入荒謬的失明境地，是一部極富哲理意涵之作。
對這部幫他戴上桂冠的傑作，薩拉馬戈如是說，「盲目並非真的盲目，這是對理性的盲目。我們都是理性的人，但是沒有理性的行為。」
一個開車者在繁忙的路口突然眼盲而無法動彈。一個「錯誤」的好心人開車送他回家，卻成了第二個犧牲品。眼科醫生成了第三個……。疾病蔓延開來，城市一片混亂。於是，當局下令將所有的盲者都趕進一間精神病院，派武裝士兵把守，並開始開槍。此時，罪惡的因子也在倖存的盲者中萌芽，口糧被偷走，婦女遭強姦。所有的一切都落入醫生太太眼中，她為了照顧失明的丈夫，而偽稱自己也是瞎子。
結局和最終周圍的騷亂一樣離奇而又可悲……
喬賽•薩拉馬戈 Jose Saramago 1922 年生於葡萄牙，曾經操持多種不同行業已維生計，包括技工、技術設計人員與文學編輯，但是他從 1979 年起，即全力投入創作。
他的作品包含了戲劇、詩作、短篇故事、非小說與虛構小說，他的小說已經被翻譯為二十餘種語言。1988 年出版的《巴達薩與布莉穆妲》（Baltasar and Blimunda）首度將他帶進英語出版世界的焦點，《費城詢問報》（Philodelphia Inquirer）讚美該部小說「一部虛構而極富原創性的歷史小說，足以比美賈西亞•馬奎斯顛峰時期作品」。
薩拉馬戈並以《詩人雷伊斯逝世的那一年》（The year of the Death of Ricardo Reis）一書獲英國《獨立報》（Independent）「國外小說創作獎」；本書譯者喬凡尼•龐提耶若（Giovanni Pontiero）亦因翻譯翻譯《耶穌基督的福音》（The Gospel According to Jesus Christ）一書獲頒 Teixeira-Gomes 葡萄牙語翻譯獎。喬賽•薩拉馬戈在 1992 年獲選為當年的葡萄牙文作家，並於 1998 年獲得諾貝爾文學獎，為當今全球最知名的葡萄牙作家，現居加納利群島。
▼ 譯者簡介
彭玲嫻
台大外文系畢業，曾任新聞局《光華畫報雜誌》英文編輯，現專事翻譯，兼任《時代解讀》雜誌主筆，譯有《人海中找到你》、《瘋人遺囑》等書。

Winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. A city is hit by an epidemic of 'white blindness.' The blindness spreads, sparing no one. Authorities confine the blind to a vacant mental hospital secured by armed guards. Inside, the criminal element among the blind hold the rest captive: food rations are stolen, women are raped. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers through the barren streets. The developments within this oddly anonymous group -- the first blind man, the old man with the black eye patch, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with no mother, and the dog of tears -- are as uncanny as the surrounding chaos is harrowing. PA parable of loss and disorientation, of man's worst appetites and hopeless weaknesses, Blindness is one of the most challenging, thought-provoking, and ultimately exhilarating novels published in any language in recent years.

Senhor José is a low-grade clerk in the city's Central Registry, where the living and the dead share the same shelf space. A middle-aged bachelor, he has no interest in anything beyond the certificates of birth, marriage, divorce, and death that are his daily preoccupations. In the evenings, and on weekends, he works on bringing up to date his clipping file of the famous, the rising stars, the notorious. But when one day he comes across the birth certificate of an anonymous young woman, he decides that this cannot have been mere chance, he has to discover more about her. After all, to know a name is not to know the person.
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Under the increasingly mystified eye of the Registrar, a godlike figure whose name is spoken only in whispers, the now obsessed Senhor José sets off, in every moment he can steal from work, to follow the thread that leads him to the woman's school, to her godmother, to her father and mother-but as he gets closer to a meeting with the unknown woman, he discovers more about her, and about himself, than he would have wished....
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The loneliness of people's lives, the effects of chance and moments of recognition, the discovery of love, however tentative...once again José Saramago has written a timeless story.

When King and Church exercise absolute power what happens to the dreams of ordinary people? In early eighteenth century Lisbon, Baltasar, a soldier who has lost a hand in battle, falls in love with Blimunda, a young girl with visionary powers. From the day that he follows her home from the auto-da-fe where her mother is condemned and burned at the stake, the two are bound body and soul by a love of unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Pardere Bartolemeu Lourenco, whose fantasy is to invent a flying machine. As the inquisition rages and royalty and religion clash, they pursue his impossible, not to mention heretical, dream of flight.

Alternate cover edition here

Uma cidade é devastada por uma epidemia instantânea de "cegueira branca". Face a este surto misterioso, os primeiros indivíduos a serem infectados são colocados pelas autoridades governamentais em quarentena, num hospital abandonado. Cada dia que passa aparecem mais pacientes, e esta recém-criada "sociedade de cegos" entra em colapso. Tudo piora quando um grupo de criminosos, mais poderoso fisicamente, se sobrepõe aos fracos, racionando-lhes a comida e cometendo actos horríveis. Há, porém, uma testemunha ocular a este pesadelo: uma mulher, cuja visão não foi afectada por esta praga, que acompanha o seu marido cego para o asilo. Ali, mantendo o seu segredo, ela guia sete desconhecidos que se tornam, na sua essência, numa família. Ela leva-os para fora da quarentena em direcção às ruas deprimentes da cidade, que viram todos os vestígios de uma civilização entrar em colapso. A viagem destes é plena de perigos, mas a mulher guia-os numa luta contra os piores desejos e fraquezas da raça humana, abrindo-lhes a porta para um novo mundo de esperança, onde a sua sobrevivência e redenção final reflectem a tenacidade do espírito humano.

Raimundo Silva es un revisor de textos de una editorial, un personaje anodino que tiene como misión en la vida conservar la integridad de los textos que llegan a sus manos. Un día, revisando un texto histórico, toma una decisión: introducir un «No» donde debería aparecer un «Sí». Esta determinación altera, sin duda alguna, la historia escrita, pero también va a ser fundamental en su vida personal. El conservador Raimundo Silva no volverá a ser sujeto paciente de la historia, ni de la universal ni de la personal, porque su acto de rebeldía le hace asumir el potagonismo que, como hombre —y por tanto ser hegemónico— le corresponde en la vida.

This book is a retelling of the Gospel following the life of Christ from his conception to his crucifixion. A naive Jesus is the son not of God, but of Joseph. In the desert it is not Satan, but God that Christ tussles with, an autocrat with whom he has an unbalanced and unsettled relationship.

A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations, and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides her charges—among them a boy with no mother, a girl with dark glasses, a dog of tears—through the barren streets, and their procession becomes as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing. As
reclaims the age-old story of a plague, it evokes the vivid and trembling horrors of the twentieth century, leaving readers with a powerful vision of the human spirit that's bound both by weakness and exhilarating strength.

On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to go out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o' clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.
But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? A police superintendent is put on the case.
What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness.

Neste novo romance, o vencedor do prêmio Nobel José Saramago reconta episódios bíblicos do Velho Testamento sob o ponto de vista de Caim, que, depois de assassinar seu irmão, trava um incomum acordo com deus e parte numa jornada que o levará do jardim do Éden aos mais recônditos confins da criação.
Se, em O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo, José Saramago nos deu sua visão do Novo Testamento, neste Caim ele se volta aos primeiros livros da Bíblia, do Éden ao dilúvio, imprimindo ao Antigo Testamento a música e o humor refinado que marcam sua obra. Num itinerário heterodoxo, Saramago percorre cidades decadentes e estábulos, palácios de tiranos e campos de batalha, conforme o leitor acompanha uma guerra secular, e de certo modo involuntária, entre criador e criatura. No trajeto, o leitor revisitará episódios bíblicos conhecidos, mas sob uma perspectiva inteiramente diferente.
Para atravessar esse caminho árido, um deus às turras com a própria administração colocará Caim, assassino do irmão Abel e primogênito de Adão e Eva, num altivo jegue, e caberá à dupla encontrar o rumo entre as armadilhas do tempo que insistem em atraí-los. A Caim, que leva a marca do senhor na testa e portanto está protegido das iniquidades do homem, resta aceitar o destino amargo e compactuar com o criador, a quem não reserva o melhor dos julgamentos. Tal como o diabo de O Evangelho, o deus que o leitor encontra aqui não é o habitual dos sermões: ao reinventar o Antigo Testamento, Saramago recria também seus principais protagonistas, dando a eles uma roupagem ao mesmo tempo complexa e irônica, cujo tom de farsa da narrativa só faz por acentuar.

This is a skeptic' s journey into the meaning of God and of human existence. At once an ironic rendering of the life of Christ and a beautiful novel, Saramago' s tale has sparked intense discussion about the meaning of Christianity and the Church as an institution. Translated by Giovanni Pontiero.

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?