The Double
(Enemy)
Published on 6. October 2005
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-0-09-946165-4 (ISBN)
Description
Watching a rented video, Tertuliano Maximo Afonso is shocked to notice that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. He embarks on a secret quest to find his double and sets in motion a train of events that he cannot control. Saramago's novel explores the nature of individuality and examines the fear and insecurity that arise when our singularity comes under threat, when even a wife cannot tell the original from the imposter...
Reviews / Votes
Quite unlike anything else * London Review of Books * A Borgesian fable with a marvellous flavour all its own -- Phillip Hensher, Books of the Year * Spectator * A comic and profound exploration of the self... A uniquely seductive writer * Daily Telegraph * The Double is Saramago at his most practised and polished. It is philosophy and thriller rolled into one * Independent * Indebted to Borges and with a nod to Auster, he manages to surpass both with the audacity and sheer erudition of his prose -- Catherine Taylor * The Guardian * In the pacy denouement the consequences of the hero's actions are played out with surprising deftness... [An] extraordinarily bold and peculiar romance * The Times * Written with gusto, wit an imaginative energy...an urgent and topical masterpiece * Literary Review * Thought-provoking, scrupulously constructed and narrated with buoyant high spirits * Times Literary Supplement * Cleverly written and left me with lots to think about...a very good book * http://www.farmlanebooks.co.uk/ *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 200 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
215 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-09-946165-4 (9780099461654)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Persons
Jose 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.