Saramago, Jose (Translated by Margaet Jull Costa)
Skylight: A Novel

Imprint: New York City, NY, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2014
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardback , With Dust Jacket

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 300 pages. The author's posthumously published novel. Written early in his career but previously unpublished, this marks the very first appearance of the title in English and in the United States. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only that sold out shortly after publication. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Jose Saramago's "Claraboia" in a felicitous English translation. Intertwined stories of the residents of a faded apartment building in 1940's Lisbon. "Silvestre and Mariana, a happily married elderly couple, take in a young nomad, Abel, and soon discover their many differences. Adriana loves Beethoven more than any man, but her budding sexuality brings new feelings to the surface. Carmen left Galicia to marry humble Emilio, but hates Lisbon and longs for her first love, Manolo. Lidia used to work the streets, but now she's kept by Paulo, a wealthy man with a wandering eye. These are just some of the characters in this early work, completed by Saramago in 1953 but never published until now. With his characteristic compassion, depth, and wit, Saramago shows us the quiet contentment of a happy family and the infectious poison of an unhappy one. A portrait of ordinary people, painted by a Master of the quotidian, a great observer of the immense beauty and profound hardships of the modern world" (Publisher's blurb). Saramago was an anomaly who came out of nowhere, seemingly born a genius. Every single page of every single book he has ever written makes the reader feel that he or she is in the hands of an unsurpassable Master. "He got ahead of us; he is ahead of us. His work belongs to our future" (Ursula K. LeGuin). An absolute "must-have" title for Jose Saramago collectors. This title is a late-modern classic. This is one of few copies of the First American Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce copy thus. Regarded by Harold Bloom as one of the two greatest novelists of our time (the other being Philip Roth), Jose Saramago will be read as probably the greatest European novelist of the last fifty years. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOSE SARAMAGO TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0544090020.

Stock number: 19487. ISBN: 0544090020

Bookseller's details and sales conditions: ModernRare

$US 30.00