Memoirs of José Saramago

Small Memories

José Saramago

translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Harvill Secker

ISBN :9781846551482

Publication date: 05/11/2009

B format Hardback 208 pages

Original Price :£12.99

Born in Portugal in 1922 in the tiny village of Azinhaga, José Saramago was only eighteen months old when he moved with his father and mother to live in a series of cramped lodgings in a working-class neighbourhood of Lisbon. Nevertheless, he would return to the village throughout his childhood and adolescence, its river landscape and olive groves seeping deep into his memory.Shifting back and forth between Azinhaga and Lisbon, this touching book is a mosaic of memories, a gathering together of the fragmented recollections that make up the idea of one’s youth. Lust, love, humiliation, aspiration - the raptures and miseries of childhood are beautifully captured: Saramago’s grandparents bringing the weaker piglets into their bed to keep them warm; the young José proudly carrying his first balloon on a string, only to be mocked by two strangers as it empties of air, the shrivelled remains dragging behind him; his first encounter with literature as he listens entranced to a friend’s mother reading out weekly instalments of Maria, the Fairy of the Forest, and the seven-year-old José doggedly teaching himself to read by deciphering articles in the daily newspaper brought home by his father.

José Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922 and has been a full-time writer since 1979. His oeuvre embraces plays, poetry, short stories, non-fiction and eleven novels, which have been translated into more than forty languages and have established him as the most influential Portuguese writer of his generation. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

A Memoir of Gioconda Belli

The Country Under My Skin
A Memoir of Love and War

Gioconda Belli

Product Details:- Bloomsbury Paperbacks ISBN: 9780747558996

Format: Paperback, 352 pages,

RRP: £8.99 Sp.Price : 650.00

Synopsis

Lives don't get much more quixotic or passionately driven than that of the Nicaraguan revolutionary Gioconda Belli. She may have been educated by nuns and dazzled all as a well-heeled society girl, but Gioconda lifted her 'guilt of privilege' by joining the Sandinistas in her twenties, to serve and then lead in their underground resistance. If part of her wanted to fulfil society's classic code of femininity and produce four children (which she did), there was also part which wanted the privileges of men - the freedom to carry out clandestine operations, to forge the Sandinista resistance effort even with toddler and infant in tow.'Conspiracy came easy to me,' confesses Belli. She hid political pamphlets from her first husband as she hid her love affairs with remarkable men. This remarkable book is a journey of the heart, through marriages and grand passions, as well as an insider's view of a revolutionary movement. From Nicaragua and its intrigue to Cuba where she locked horns with Castro, to exile in Costa Rica where she organised an underground network, back to a triumphant if short-lived Sandinista government where she was in charge of State television, Gioconda Belli's life is one of real-life intrigue - political and romantic - and hard-won wisdom. And as a novelist and poet, Belli has created her self-portrait with great skill and eloquence.

About The Author

Gioconda Belli's poetry and fiction have been published in many languages. Her first novel, The Inhabited Woman, was an international bestseller; her collection of poems Linea de Fuego won the prestigious Casa de Las Americas prize in 1978. She lives in santa Monica and Managua.Gioconda Belli has lived an extraordinary life. Find out more in the editorial review of her autobiography, The Country Under My Skin, published by Bloomsbury in paperback version in August 2003.