Baltasar & Blimunda - Tapa blanda

"A mighty novel, variously bawdy, elevated, angry and tender, combining erudition, comedy, heresy, surreal science fiction and countless good stories" (Robert Farren Sunday Independent)

"Original and brilliant. It is filled with wonder at man's ability to invest and achieve as well as an aversion to the oppression of state faith... Lovers of Marquez and magical realism will be enchanted by the wonder of this novel, for the colour and vivacity of Saramago's imagination inspires and entertains" (Kate Figes Sunday Times)

"Jose Saramago affirms the simple truths as only a writer of rare stature can" (Christopher Wordsworth Guardian)

As the Inquisition rages, an extraordinary trinity struggle to realise a creation that will fly in the face of the monstrous vanity of Church and State.

In early 18th-century Lisbon, Baltasar, a soldier who has lost his left hand in battle, falls in love with Blimunda, a young girl with visionary powers. From the day that he follows her home from the auto-da-fe where his mother is burned at the stake, the two are bound body and soul by a love of unassailable strength. A third party shares their supper that evening: Padre Bartolomeu Lourenco, whose fantasy is to invent a flying machine. As the Crown and the Church clash, they pursue his impossible, not to mention heretical, dream of flight.