Manual of Painting and Calligraphy

<strong>From the Nobel Prize winning author--a novel that takes us into the last days of Salazar's dictatorship when a second-rate artist is commissioned by a wealthy client to paint a portrait and the political and intellectual struggles that ensue.</strong><br/><br/><em>Manual of Painting and Calligraphy</em> was José Saramago's first novel. Written eight years before the critically acclaimed <em>Baltasar and Blimunda</em> it is a story of self-discovery set against the background of the last years of Salazar's dictatorship. A struggling young artist commissioned to paint a portrait of an influential industrialist learns in the process about himself and the world around him. The brilliant juxtaposition of a passionate love story and the crisis of a nation foreshadows all of Saramago's major works. A must-have for any devotee of the great Portuguese Nobel laureate <em>Manual of Painting and Calligraphy</em> is now available in the United States.<br/><br/>Taut and compelling. --<em> Los Angeles Times Book Review</em><br/><br/>Beautifully realized heartbreakingly honest. -- <em>Providence Journal-Bulletin</em><br/><br/>Almost impossible to put down. -- <em>Austin American-Statesman</em>