SOURCE: A review of História do Cerco de Lisboa, in World Literature Today, Vol. 64, No. 1, Winter, 1990, p. 84.

[In the following review, Preto-Rodas calls História do Cerco de Lisboa a "worthy addition" to Saramago's canon.]

In light of the author's enormous successes in recent years, the fanfare occasioned by his most recent novel is hardly surprising. The first edition was launched in both Portugal and Brazil with an unheard-of printing of fifty thousand copies. The first printing ran out in one day in Brazil, where the novel has topped best-seller lists. História do Cerco de Lisboa has met with similar acclaim in Portugal, where the prestigious Jornal de Letras for 18 April declared it "the best of Saramago's novels," a rave which some may qualify only when recalling Memorial do Convento (1982; see WLT 58:1, p. 78, and 61:1, pp. 27-31) and its many translations.

História do Cerco de Lisboa...