The Story Archive

The History of the Siege of Lisbon

José Saramago · 1989 CE · Novel · Portuguese · Contemporary

A middle-aged proofreader at a Lisbon publishing house inserts one word into a historian's account of the 1147 siege, so that the crusaders now refuse to help the Portuguese king take the city from the Moors. Instead of losing his job he is given a new editor and a dare: write out the history his negation implies. It is Saramago's most direct argument that the past is a text somebody wrote and could have written otherwise.

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Attributes

Genre
HistoricalRomanceSatire
Theme
Memory & TimeLoveIdentity & SelfArt & Creation
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanCreatorLover
Plot structure
MetafictionFrame NarrativeDual World
Symbol / motif
The Book / ManuscriptThe CityThe Tower
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
IronicMetafictionalRealist
Culture / tradition
Portuguese

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