Presented by Alex at the May 2025 meeting
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
- Published 1984
- Fiction
- 358 pages
- Alex5
In brief
Back in Lisbon after 16 years as a doctor in Brazil, RR wanders the streets. He runs into his poet friend Fernando Passeo dressed in the suit he was buried in 6 weeks prior. It is 1936, the clouds of fascism are moving in....
From the publisher
Lisbon circa 1935 comes to life in this story of a doctor who forsakes medicine to recite poetry in the streets, the women in his life, and the ghost who occasionally accompanies him.
From Wikipedia
The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Portuguese: O Ano da Morte de Ricardo Reis) is a 1984 novel by the Portuguese novelist José Saramago, who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature. The book chronicles the final year in the life of the title character, Ricardo Reis, one of the many heteronyms used by the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa.
In the novel, Ricardo Reis returns to Lisbon from Brazil, upon catching wind of Pessoa's death. While there, he chooses not to resume practicing medicine, but rather takes up residence in a hotel, where he wastes his days reading newspapers and wandering the streets of Lisbon.
The novel was translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero in 1991 and won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.