SOURCE: "The Subversive Proofreader," in New York Times Book Review, July 13, 1997, pp. 1-3.

[In the following review, White praises Saramago's deft handling of the love affair in The History of the Siege of Lisbon.]

Like his near contemporaries Franz Kafka and Constantine Cavafy, Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) was a writer and a clerk, but he encapsulated many different literary personalities. He lived in Lisbon most of his adult life, though he'd been brought up in Durban, South Africa, and his first poems were in English. Pessoa made his living by translating business letters into Portuguese, but in his spare time he wrote poems and prose pieces under many different names and in many styles. For instance, his most famous prose work, The Book of Disquiet, was written under the name Bernardo Soares.

Although Pessoa is mentioned only once in The History of the Siege of Lisbon, by Jose Saramago, he...