La Caverna (Biblioteca Jose Saramago)

Cipriano Algor, an elderly potter, lives with his daughter Marta and her husband Mar?al in a small village on the outskirts of The Center, an imposing complex of shops, apartment blocks, offices, and sensation zones. Mar?al works there as a security guard, and Cipriano drives him to work each day before delivering his own humble pots and jugs. On one such visit, he is told not to make any more deliveries until further notice. People prefer plastic, he is told; it lasts longer and doesn't break. Unwilling to give up his craft, Cipriano tries his hand at making ceramic dolls. Astonishingly, The Center places an order for hundreds of figurines, and Cipriano and Marta set to work. In the meantime, Cipriano meets a young widow at the graves of their recently departed spouses, and a hesitant romance begins.

When Marta learns that she is pregnant and Mar?al receives a promotion, they all move into an apartment in The Center. Soon they hear a mysterious sound of digging, and one night Mar?al and Cipriano investigate. Horrified by the discovery, the family, which now includes the widow and a dog, sets off in a truck, heading for the great unknown. Suffused with the depth, humor, and above all the extraordinary sense of humanity that marks each of his novels, The Cave is sure to become an essential book of our time.

"...Saramago has an extraordinary ability to make a complex narrative read like a simple parable. This remarkably generous and eloquent novel is another landmark work from an 80-year-old literary giant who remains at the height of his powers." Publishers Weekly

"Far from resting on his laurels, Portugal?s 1998 Nobel laureate, now 80, brings us yet another ruefully comic and disturbing allegorical tale--a worthy companion to its superlative immediate predecessors Blindness (1998) and All the Names (2000)....We?ll say it again: Saramago is the finest living novelist, bar none." Kirkus Reviews

Una pequeña alfarería, un shopping gigantesco. Una familia de alfareros comprende que ha dejado de serle necesaria al mundo. En La caverna José Saramago se enfrenta al proceso acelerado de deshumanización en que nos encontramos.

Un mundo en rápido proceso de extinción y otro que crece y se multiplica como un juego de espejos donde parece no haber límites para la ilusión engañosa. Esta novela habla de un modo de vivir que cada vez va siendo menos el nuestro y se asoma a la entrada de un "mundo felíz" cuyas consecuencias sobre la mentalidad humana son cada vez más visibles y amenazadoras. Todos los días se extinguen especies animales y vegetales, todos los días hay profesiones que se tornan inútiles, idiomas que ya no son hablados, tradiciones que pierden sentido, sentimientos que se convierten en sus contrarios.

Junto a Ensayo sobre la ceguera y a Todos los nombres este nuevo libro conforma un tríptico en que el autor deja escrita su visión del mundo actual y de la sociedad humana tal como la vivimos. En definitiva: no cambiaremos de vida si no cambiamos la vida.

A small pottery shop, a gigantic business district. One world rapidly headed toward extinction, another which grows and multiplies within a mirrored maze where there appear to be no boundaries nor limits to false illusions. La caverna is the story of a family of potters who realize that their craft is no longer appreciated in such a fast-paced, everchanging society.

Jose Saramago is one of the most acclaimed writers in the world today. He is the author of numerous novels, including All the Names, Blindness, and Baltasar and Blimunda. In 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.