Raised From The Ground - Softcover

"Time now gives us English-speakers the chance to see how well he worked to serve and deserve such greatness in this early novel"

"Here Saramago has begun to develop a unique voice which swoops and dives on his own work like a bird (and which is captured with all the skill of a ventriloquist in Margaret Jull Costa’s excellent translation)"

"By Saramago’s own reckoning it was the book in which he found and developed his style... a novel that resounds with relevance for our own time"

"This is a rich novel about a family of landless agricultural workers struggling over four generations... Readers of José Saramago will not be surprised at this original combination of serious denunciation of injustice with sarcasm and humour... Such an allusive novel, with its own orthodoxy in punctuation and subtle shifts of tone, is especially hard to translate. It reads beautifully well"

"A torrent of storytelling delivered with a lively, humorous immediacy, where his narrative drive and digressive thoughts flow unimpeded by conventional punctuation restraints"

"It bears the hallmarks of Saramego’s righteous political passions, the acute sense of irony, and genuine love for his land and people, especially the poor. Superb writing and perfect Christmas reading"

"Raised from the Ground covers the entire 20th-century political history of Portugal in one rich, literary family saga... This lost piece of Saramago’s output is perfectly Portuguese – and well worth a look"

"While examining serious political issues – and in particular the power of a small group against exploitation and injustice – the tale is also rich with humour, compassion and love. It is, amongst other things, perhaps Saramago's way of showing his admiration for the people with whom he grew up"

"The narrative voice is unmistakable: a mature, quiet voice, conversational and easy, often ironic or endearingly humorous, that flows forward weaving and interbraiding with itself, wandering but never losing impetus"

"Saramago presents a deeply detailed analytical portrait of the Portuguese rural landscape as if to impress it on the readers' (and his own) mind forever"

This deeply personal work, follows the changing fortunes of the Mau-Tempo family – poor, landless peasants not unlike the author’s own grandparents. Saramago charts the lives of the family in Alentjo, southern Portugal, as national and international events rumble on in the background – the coming of the republic in Portugal, the First and Second World Wars, and an attempt on the dictator Salazar's life. Yet, nothing seriously impinges on the farm labourers' lives until the first stirrings of communism.