Editions

The Stone Raft

The Stone Raft

What if, one day, Europe was to crack along the length of the Pyrenees, separating Spain and Portugal from the rest of Europe?

In Saramago's fable, a new island is sent spinning through the ocean like a great stone raft. While the authorities panic and tourists flee, three men, two women and a dog are drawn together by omens that burden them with a peculiar responsibility. In this magical realist tale, the six take to the road, finding themselves adrift in a world now unfamiliar and forced to reckon with their relationships, human psychology and the shakiness of belief itself.

Reviews

  • An irresistible blend of shrewd detail and lyrical fantasy... A seductive novel that needs to be savoured

    Observer

  • An invitation to one of the richest bodies of work by a living writer

    New Statesman

  • Jose Saramago's brilliant evocation...is magical realism of a sort that stirs real wonder

    Time Out

  • Saramago's lovely and original questing story, in a lineage of others such as Don Quixote and Kipling's Kim, is a journey of the spirit told as a journey of the feet

    Los Angeles Times

  • Tremendous wit is always apparent in his imaginative conceits, comic digression and verbal and narrative games

    Sunday Times

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About the Author

José Saramago

José Saramago is one of the most important international writers of the last hundred years. Born in Portugal in 1922, he was in his sixties when he came to prominence as a writer with the publication of Baltasar and Blimunda. A huge body of work followed, translated into more than forty languages, and in 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Saramago died in June 2010.

José Saramago

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