The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, by José Saramago 

The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, published in 1984, was the first best-selling novel of Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago. 

Set in 1935-1936, Saramago brings Ricardo Reis, one of the heteronyms (literary creations) of Portugal’s great modernist poet Fernando Pessoa, back to Lisbon from his exile in Brazil. Reis reacquaints himself with the city of his childhood, wrestles with love and desire, and converses with the ghost of his old friend Fernando Pessoa, who has recently passed away. Meanwhile the clouds of fascism gather in Europe, and in Portugal.  

In the words of its translator, Giovanni Pontiero, this novel is “like some great book of life” ranging over ideas and “issues that no thinking person or artist can ignore.” There are many threads to pull on, and in the course of the study we will converse with Saramago, Reis and Pessoa on truth, on love and death, art, existence and nothingness, solitude and politics, philosophy and the nature of the self.  

This study is for anyone interested in engaging in a wide-ranging conversation on these universal themes. But there is also much in this novel that is historically and contemporarily salient as Saramago, not content to merely contemplate the world, engages us in a deep examination of values, personal and political, against the threat of menacing forms of xenophobia and ultra-nationalism.  

If you have already participated in the LitSalon Introduction to Fernando Pessoa, this study is an ideal sequel. If you have not yet encountered Pessoa’s work, or if you are interested in doing a future Pessoa study, Saramago’s book is a wonderful entry point into the incredible multiplicity of Pessoa’s literary achievement. 

JOINING DETAILS:

• Seven week study led by Desma Lawrence
• Tuesdays, 12.00-2.00 pm (UK time), 24 September – 5 November 2024
• Recommended edition: The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis by José Saramago, Vintage Classics, ISBN: 9781860465024
• £210 for seven two-hour meetings, to include introductory notes and resources.